Monday, 26 December 2011 06:28 pm
Gacked from Nefaria
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deckardcanineComment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you. They might make sense, or they might be totally random. Then post that list, along with your commentary.
1. Playwrights. Much as I like plays in general (I used to want to see every play as soon as I heard of it), only a few playwrights have written more than one that I’ve read or seen, which makes choosing a favorite playwright difficult. I can rule out several on the basis of being too unhappy or inscrutable, Samuel Beckett exemplifying both. Ultimately I take the hackneyed route of favoring Shakespeare most: I know maybe 18 of his plays, and the worst is merely forgettable. For second place, well, do Rodgers and Hammerstein count?
2. Downscale. My webcomic has always provided me with mixed emotions. As a hobby to keep me more mentally engaged and less passive than with video games or movies, it works great. As a way to break the ice in conversation, it’s OK. As entertainment for others? I’m always afraid to find out. Evidence suggests that to call it a cult comic would be generous. I’ve never gone a full year without thinking of quitting, which makes the upcoming fifth anniversary somewhat dangerous. Could I bring myself to a big makeover, like Garry Trudeau did in the ‘80s? I still wouldn’t try to make money off it. Whatever I decide, I will not quit cartooning altogether.
3. Zelda. Despite loving Nintendo from my single digits, I took until my late teens to have more than a passing interest in the Legend of Zelda series, the turning point being Ocarina of Time with its music, graphics, and more identifiable Link. (By contrast, my love of Mario saw a huge drop with Super Mario 64; go figure.) Every non-handheld Zelda adventure since has been good for at least three playthroughs in my book, so I’ll gladly buy a Wii Motion Plus for the latest release. Since college, I’ve drawn Link, or at least spoofed him in drawings, more often than any other character from any medium, aside from my own characters.
4. Sci-fi. I thought I’d grown less fond of sci-fi after high school, but it’s more that I’m less mystified. The fact remains that most of my leisure reading for ages has been sci-fi or fantasy, and yesterday I received six books from that section, all on my wish list. I tend to find sci-fi more respectable than fantasy but also more negative, my latest story effort being a case in point. Of course, few sci-fi stories in any medium can avoid being laughable in the long term.
5. Foxes. For some reason, I failed to notice just how cute these semi-esteemed canids can be, in both reality and fiction, until I discovered furry webcomics. My avatar choice was largely a matter of reflex from before I knew how overdone it is. For all its feline traits, the red fox is no longer my solid favorite, with the fennec, arctic, and bat-eared foxes all putting forth a good show. I hope to see one of the above in person (or in fox) someday, but as I indicated in a poem months ago, to keep one as a pet is too much trouble.
1. Playwrights. Much as I like plays in general (I used to want to see every play as soon as I heard of it), only a few playwrights have written more than one that I’ve read or seen, which makes choosing a favorite playwright difficult. I can rule out several on the basis of being too unhappy or inscrutable, Samuel Beckett exemplifying both. Ultimately I take the hackneyed route of favoring Shakespeare most: I know maybe 18 of his plays, and the worst is merely forgettable. For second place, well, do Rodgers and Hammerstein count?
2. Downscale. My webcomic has always provided me with mixed emotions. As a hobby to keep me more mentally engaged and less passive than with video games or movies, it works great. As a way to break the ice in conversation, it’s OK. As entertainment for others? I’m always afraid to find out. Evidence suggests that to call it a cult comic would be generous. I’ve never gone a full year without thinking of quitting, which makes the upcoming fifth anniversary somewhat dangerous. Could I bring myself to a big makeover, like Garry Trudeau did in the ‘80s? I still wouldn’t try to make money off it. Whatever I decide, I will not quit cartooning altogether.
3. Zelda. Despite loving Nintendo from my single digits, I took until my late teens to have more than a passing interest in the Legend of Zelda series, the turning point being Ocarina of Time with its music, graphics, and more identifiable Link. (By contrast, my love of Mario saw a huge drop with Super Mario 64; go figure.) Every non-handheld Zelda adventure since has been good for at least three playthroughs in my book, so I’ll gladly buy a Wii Motion Plus for the latest release. Since college, I’ve drawn Link, or at least spoofed him in drawings, more often than any other character from any medium, aside from my own characters.
4. Sci-fi. I thought I’d grown less fond of sci-fi after high school, but it’s more that I’m less mystified. The fact remains that most of my leisure reading for ages has been sci-fi or fantasy, and yesterday I received six books from that section, all on my wish list. I tend to find sci-fi more respectable than fantasy but also more negative, my latest story effort being a case in point. Of course, few sci-fi stories in any medium can avoid being laughable in the long term.
5. Foxes. For some reason, I failed to notice just how cute these semi-esteemed canids can be, in both reality and fiction, until I discovered furry webcomics. My avatar choice was largely a matter of reflex from before I knew how overdone it is. For all its feline traits, the red fox is no longer my solid favorite, with the fennec, arctic, and bat-eared foxes all putting forth a good show. I hope to see one of the above in person (or in fox) someday, but as I indicated in a poem months ago, to keep one as a pet is too much trouble.
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2. Christianity
3. Drawing
4. Webcomics
5. Anthro-cats
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Deckard Cain identifies things instantly and flawlessly in Diablo. How effective is Deckard Canine at identifying me, being 1/2 canine.
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1. Trains
2. Australian wildlife
3. "The Goon Show"
4. "The White Board"
5. Poetry
BTW, I just got your postcard; thank you!
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(I've run out of monthly ISP quota for Tali, so I'm having to reply on the iPhone which makes editing text more tricky)
>BTW, I just got your postcard; thank you!
lol, Christmas card :P
Pretty close. The first three are indeed correct. The Whiteboard however is merely a comic that I can discuss on my LJ because enough of my friends here are familiar with it. I also occasionally post comments and examples of The Alex Comic, which is popular among people who work in the finance industry.
Not counting discontinued comics that I very much enjoyed, such as A Doemain of our own, The Suburban Jungle and Kelly Hamilton's "Goodcheese", there's a few webcomics I regularly follow, all of them at least partly furry:
(Alphabetically)
Doc Rat
Faux Pas
Freefall
Furry Experience
Jack
Poisoned Minds (Alan Foreman's comic)
Sabrina Online
Sequential Art
Twokinds
Vicki Fox, The World of
Poetry however is Perri's forte.
For 4 I'd say "Furry" and for 5 I'd say "Creativity" for such things as my creative writing, photography and games (all of which I never seem to have sufficient time for)
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I'll grant that "postcard" was the wrong word, tho.
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Happy to do the first 3 and even The Whiteboard if you insist (:P) but not poetry - that one isn't mine.
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Yes and no. I have an appreciation for the better-known traditional Australian poems, and what Perri does is cute but I don't go out of my way looking for poetry. I'll explain in more detail when I'm able to communicate with a keyboard.
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1. Trains
Railways and locomotives seem to be in the blood of certain members of my family. One of my autistic nephews instantly becomes excited at the mere sight of tracks. Of course my brother and I had influences at a young age. Firstly our maternal grandfather worked for the railways for 40 years and at the time he retired was the Station Master of a station at a small rural township (sadly both the station and the township no longer exist). My grandparent’s property (which was sold off just last year) in the city of Taree faced directly toward the railway and at the time there was a roundhouse (locomotive stables), goods yard and a marshalling yard. Today none of these exist either, and the location is little more than a whistle stop. In the 70’s and 80’s however we spent hours watching the 73 class shunting locomotive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_73_class_locomotive) Although not a steam train, the locomotive has a very distinctive sound and watching it zipping up and down the track it’s every bit as cute as Thomas the Tank Engine. Furthermore we always knew in advance when a freight train was about to arrive because of a loud bell installed at the marshalling yards to warn the freighters.
My brother is an even greater railway nut than I am, and has purchased numerous antique rail vehicles, known in the USA as Speeders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeder). His first was a piece of remarkably good fortune. One day he spotted a wrecked Villiers Quadricycle (http://nicdoncaster.com/sectioncars/mycars/villiershome.htm) by the side of the tracks, apparently having been crushed by a train (sometimes the workmen forget to take them off the track). My brother believed he could restore it to working condition, so he wrote a letter to the railway asking to buy it, and they agreed at the mere price of $5. However when my brother went to take make the purchase he was astounded and delighted to find that they thought he was asking about a specimen in far better condition, and that’s the one they sold to him. He did indeed restore it to pristine condition, and it was just the beginning. At the last count he had over 30 different vehicles (some motorised, some hand-powered) in various states of repair, the best of which he has loaned to The Powerhouse Museum, Central Railway Station’s historic display and to various festivals. Finding track to run them on has been progressively more difficult. Newcastle used to have a myriad of branch lines serving coal mines and power stations, however these have gradually been torn up. Chris hopes that someday he’ll have a piece of land large enough to build his own section of track.
2. Australian wildlife
Newcastle has a large nature park named “Blackbutt Reserve” (a Blackbutt is a type of native tree) that in its heyday had numerous exhibits of native animals and plants (it’s been scaled back considerably since then). All the native animals were interesting to me; wombats, possums, koalas, goannas, native birds and so forth, but the kangaroos, wallabies and wallaroos were by far the most fascinating. I was always enthralled to see these creatures that had arms and grasping paws, yet hopped everywhere. Often I wished it were possible to experience being one, and occasionally I’ve had dreams of that being the case.
I always wanted to have a cartoon character based on a kangaroo, and gradually I developed the character Michael, however I was never satisfied until sometime in the late 1990’s when I thought to make him half fox and then finally I had something I knew I could work with. [Continued below]
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3. "The Goon Show"
The Goon Show is essentially a cartoon all in sound. My father was the one who introduced me to it, even though he lost interest in it himself just a few years later. The show involved the voice talents of renown British comics Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, as well as musicians and an incredible collection of zany sound effects. Secombe played the lead character Neddie Seagoon, a gullible buffoon. Milligan performed several different voices as well as writing most of the scripts. Sellers performed other voices, and later went on to star in numerous feature films including The Pink Panther, Dr Strangelove and The Mouse That Roared.
The Goon Show has some memorable characters. Dim-witted Eccles, crafty Grytpype-Thynne and his mangy sidekick Count Fred Moriarty, juvenile larrikin Timmy Bluebottle who would often speak his actions as though he were reading the script aloud, geriatric old Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister, and cowardly, thieving, womanising Major Dennis Bloodnok who was usually introduced in each episode with a rousing fanfare followed by sound-effects that indicated he suffered from indigestion and flatulence.
What I like best in The Goon Show however is their brand of cartoon physics. Just about anything is possible, similar to the way Will. E. Coyote paints a road on a rock and then the roadrunner vanishes into it. Goon Characters were often doing the same thing with photographs. The Goon Show has included scenes where the following happened: Characters reached a distant spot instantly by crawling through a telescope to the other side, someone opened a door and a herd of cattle ran out, and on another occasion a steam train came through, they floated a prison across the English channel, drove a steamship over a sandy desert, hunted down a Christmas pudding that had turned savage, and they built a NAFFI (”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naffi”) that could be catapulted into enemy territory and set up in 7 seconds. When gramophone records with sound effects were played the noises on them became real objects, and once Eccles appeared out of one of the records.
4. "The Whiteboard"
The Whiteboard actually took me a while to capture my attention, mostly due to the limited facial expressions on the characters. I’m in no way attracted to the actual sport, however Doc Nickel’s depiction of it is certainly entertaining. The Doc himself is certainly entertaining, and very similar to my character Patrick Digby.
5. Poetry
I have much admiration for true Australian poets of old, particularly Henry Lawson and to a lesser extent Banjo Patterson (although his “Waltzing Matilda” has become a curse upon this country). When inspired I’m able to write a few verses of rhyme myself, but none like our dear friend Perri-Dorcas who is very gifted this way.
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