Pixie Trix Comix & Hiveworks Community

New strip! http://www.ma3comic.com/strips-ma3/dude-you-would-know/

I see the cat has pulled its escape artist routine once again.

it was...a DISTACTION

Mmm, visually suggestive...

This conversation should be interesting, once Roxie finishes having her way with Tess for the distraction-pin.

Meanwhile... back at the hospital.

Note that Roxie managed some unusually sharp snark, by Ma3 standards, in panel 1.

But yeah, back at the hospital... stray thought on that; if Gary is kept in for a plausible period, and gets visitors, might we not finally see his parents in the flesh?

I do think Gary is hurt that badly though.

Yeah, you really gone and did it this time...

Cortez wrote:I do think Gary is hurt that badly though.

Gary is unconscious for an extended period, with a egg-sized lump on his head. Realistically, that's freaking bad. Comedically, it's whatever the plot requires.

Wow, Roxie provides a surprisingly rational voice in a usually irrational world.

Spidrift wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:13 pm

Note that Roxie managed some unusually sharp snark, by Ma3 standards, in panel 1.

Roxie is a very defensive, closeted, and brusque character. I would assume that she, being a lesbian, would find Tess's question silly at best and ignorant-bordering-on-offensive on another hand. She doesn't seem like the openly helpful sort, at least when it comes to matters tangential to her personal life. It seems that she fits the stereotype of the tough exterior with a mostly-nice-heart interior once you break down her walls. Definitely snarky, but within reason for her exhibited personality.

But yeah, back at the hospital... stray thought on that; if Gary is kept in for a plausible period, and gets visitors, might we not finally see his parents in the flesh?

Now THAT would be amazing. Hopefully not while he is in a compromising position. Who am I kidding? It would be at the worst possible time. Good luck Gary, if that comes to pass.

worldshaking00 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:42 am

Roxie is a very defensive, closeted, and brusque character. I would assume that she, being a lesbian, would find Tess's question silly at best and ignorant-bordering-on-offensive on another hand. She doesn't seem like the openly helpful sort, at least when it comes to matters tangential to her personal life. It seems that she fits the stereotype of the tough exterior with a mostly-nice-heart interior once you break down her walls. Definitely snarky, but within reason for her exhibited personality.

All perfectly true, but my real point there was that Roxie managed a line or two of effective and witty snark. Which means that Giz and Dave actually wrote some.

Look, those two are often wonderful comic writers. I love their stuff (at least in the Ma3 universe). But it's very noticeable that they don't do snark, at least not very often. The number of occasions when one of their characters cuts another down to size with a one-liner is quite small. I tend to assume that's why Jung's appearances are quite infrequent, and it meant that Ruby suffered a noticeable softening between her first appearance and the point where her business instincts kicked in, rather to my annoyance. So it'll be interesting to see if Roxie can sustain the sort of sharpness we see here.

Gettin' a sneaky pin on Roxie? That's a paddlin'. ;)

Spidrift wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 21, 2017 12:54 pm

So it'll be interesting to see if Roxie can sustain the sort of sharpness we see here.

Yeah, it could be. I agree that we don't get a lot of it. Not sure if that is due to our character's' personality or background or just general character interaction being scripted as such.

I was thinking about it and while snarkiness is definitely present in real life, I don't know how easy it is to portray it in a 4-panel black-and-white comic. It is a lot easier to pull off in a tv show with a laugh track, where the actors can use body language and tone of voice. With only relying on visual & context clues of a 2D character & a speech bubble, a snide comment could be misinterpreted or the snark could just flat out not be read into the conversation. Is there an manga/anime emotion icon (like a sweat drop or '#' sign) for sarcasm specifically? I suppose if someone was just annoyed with a character the '#' sign might work depending.

I don't doubt the creative team could pull it off, but I'm not sure how many eye rolls and shoulder shrugs they could inject while still maintaining a level of sexiness and keeping our interest in the Snarkster-character. Plus, snarky rarely equals sexy; most habitually snarky people don't play well with others. And they (Giz/Dave) are playing up the polite Canadian stereotype too.

worldshaking00 wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 22, 2017 2:01 am

Yeah, it could be. I agree that we don't get a lot of it. Not sure if that is due to our character's' personality or background or just general character interaction being scripted as such.

I was thinking about it and while snarkiness is definitely present in real life, I don't know how easy it is to portray it in a 4-panel black-and-white comic. It is a lot easier to pull off in a tv show with a laugh track, where the actors can use body language and tone of voice. With only relying on visual & context clues of a 2D character & a speech bubble, a snide comment could be misinterpreted or the snark could just flat out not be read into the conversation.

It's an art. It's perfectly possible to pull it off in a Webcomic without crude, crass, stupid emoticons or manga shorthand; see something like Questionable Content, which frequently gets it right (and sometimes, admittedly, overdoes it), or better still Bad Machinery, which spent seven or so years beautifully catching the tone of voice of young teens snarking each other just a little too cleverly for their years. Heck, Penny and Aggie featured more snark (and less manga influence) than Ma3.

The fact that we don't see that style of humour much in Ma3 simply leads me to conclude that it's not this creative team's style. Either they can't (not everyone can do everything), or they don't want to. I accept that, and love these comics for what they do do, but the occasional bit of sharpness does add a refreshing edge sometimes.