28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

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Tenjen
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Tenjen »

and people everyone keeps forgeting its only been a few days. VERY few days indeed.

People dont change overnight.
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Gil Hamilton
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Gil Hamilton »

It's not a a harsh criticism to say that Gary is a completely unlikeable character. It's valid. The guy is a spineless, irritating prig who acts like a shit around women. The exaggeration is the predictable "Headsplort #154" that has become his trademark gag, but the behavior is all too real in some guys. I've run an anime club in the past and there are no shortage of Garys in reality and I can't stand them. His boob grab on Yuki and his insincere rationalization that he was testing if it was a dream* was merely an aggregious incident in a pattern of behavior. Gary has gone beyond comedically clumsy to a mildly exaggerated caricature of the tremendously unfunny social lepers that make me want to down a Prussic Acid Smoothie every time I watch them creep out every woman around them and then bitch about how about how no woman loves them. Commenting on that is fair play, that is the point of these sorts of forums after all.

*(truly shitty logic. Even if Gary was sincere and not just copping a rationalized feel, he should be punished for abusing logic)

However, what I find offensive is the notion that some people carry that you aren't allowed to criticize anything and that you should check your brains at the door for any media. You get it with action flicks to comedies. Guess what? Any bit of media that requires you to check your brain at the door is usually indicative of a badly made product. Menage a 3 has been generally enjoyable and I check it because of Miss Legace's excellent comic artwork (it still reminds me of a cross between Archie comics and Terry Moore's "Strangers in Paradise"; a combination I adore). Since I consider it something worth checking every 2-3 days, I will not be so disrepectful as to not state my opinions on it where applicable and merely "just try and laugh at their antics".

To say that Gary is a little shit or that DiDi's complete lack of social sense is starting to stretch one's suspension of disbelief are not unfair criticisms. In fact, the first actually isn't a criticism of the strip at all. Gary being a little shit is a design element of the story, not a flaw in the storytelling. Only when the storytelling insist we be sympathetic toward him does it become criticism.

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by somemannerof »

Hi, long time reader, first time poster.

Dirty n Evil... I'm not trying to make enemies here, but if we're just supposed to "try and laugh at their antics"...what's the point of a forum? To post LOL over and over again?

(Criticizing a mod...off to a whale of a start here! :p )

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Bear
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Bear »

Okay Gil, your starting to step way over the mark. Calling Gary a little shit, when he doesn't even appear in todays strip, over one singular event of bad judgement is going too far to the extremes and is like calling The Pope a Satanist Nazi because of his past when you know nothing about him as a person. As pointed out time and time again, the actual timeframe of the comic has only been about a week now, and if your expecting people to change completely in such a short timeframe you are sadly deluded.

Quite frankly you are starting to come across as a complete troll. You are offering no supporting facts beyond 'Gary's an asshole' to even support saying that. To say he acts like a shit around women... Tell me, how many 29 year old virgins with a comic book and general nerdy fixation you know who are Casanova's when it comes to women?

Your allowed to critisize but you are hurly abuse and there is a big difference between critisim and the mindless and offensive hate speech that you are sprouting. The only little shit I can see here as you so eliquently put it is yourself.

While your welcome to voice your opinion and dislike of a particular strip, we do not tollerate the fact that you are bombarding the forum with frankly straight out abbusive comments about fictional characters with nothing to back up your reasoning beyond 'he's an asshole because he did something stupid in a comic situation'... If you find the comic so offensive, don't read it, but for god's sake addjust your attitude before you post here again as you are pissing off alot of people.

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HotlyContested
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by HotlyContested »

It was clear from the get-go that Menage à 3 was not going to be politically correct. It has made me cringe a few times, but I'm grateful for that, because we already have way too much watered-down bullshit out there already.

Keep up the great work. That's my two cents. (Not that anybody cares. *sigh* :p )

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Bear
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Bear »

I care as that is constructive critisism. Heck, with a title like Menagea3 it's practically expected to not conform to social norms.

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by semifamous »

patagonian wrote:Am I missing something, or has everyone else also missed the revelation that DiDi is also a comic book geek? :-\
My sister read Archie. Anything you can find in the supermarket checkout line next to Readers Digest just doesn't seem like it counts as comic book geekery.

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Kamino Neko »

Daremo wrote:
Kamino Neko wrote:the dude had a 20s vintage jalopy into the 80s, for grife's sake!
That actually falls in the 'really cool' folder, for me.
Despite the fact that the reason he had it was because he couldn't afford something that ran more than half the time? (I'm sure the reason they changed it was they realized the upkeep on the damn thing would be more expensive than getting a new car by the 90s.) Perhaps using 'vintage' was a bad choice of words, since it implies a certain amount of quality, when used for anything other than wine. It wasn't a 'vintage car', it was a rattletrap, that he probably bought when someone was clearing out their grandfather's barn of stuff that hasn't been used since the 50s.
patagonian wrote:Am I missing something, or has everyone else also missed the revelation that DiDi is also a comic book geek? :-\
No such revelation has been made. Liking Archie is completely orthogonal to being a comic book geek. Archies are non-geek comics. EVERYBODY knows Archie.

When she compares Zii to Katchoo...then we'll know we have a comic book geek.
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Don Alexander »

Now I haz a confuzzle. I know that I hardly know anything about Archie (hey, there are people outside the US, you know...), but the name Katchoo immediately rang a bell. Looked it up - the aforementioned Strangers in Paradise. But I can't recall ever having read it...

Also, everyone, calm down a bit...

While I don't agree at all with Gil Hamilton's Gary-bashing, I also find myself at disagreement with beary-mod labeling him a "complete troll"... Because, you know, this is a forum of a webcomic. They are fictional characters. Gil is clearly not attacking Giz and Dave, just a ficitional character. Gary can live with that, methinks. On the other hand, beary-mod is directly attacking another forumite, a real person...

And you know my opinion on that.
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Giz »

Yeah, Bear overreacted a bit, but he's human, and Bear is Bear.

Now in regards to character development...

It's often hard for a creator to be disassociated from their previous work. For instance, someone reading Ranma 1/2 from Takahashi might've been disappointed with Inuyasha. Rumiko was clearly not trying to recreate Ranma 1/2 with Inuyasha.

I'm mentioning this 'cause I know Gil is a P&A reader. It's normal for a P&A reader to come here and expect character development, however, Ma3 is not P&A. When we started Ma3, Dave and I knew most P&A readers wouldn't like, understand and follow Ma3. At first, readers were mad with Dillon and Matt for screwing Gary over like that, 'cause being mostly P&A readers (in the beginning of the strip,) they couldn't see the absurdity of the whole thing and how it really shouldn't be taken too seriously. New readers, that came from outside P&A, had no expectations, and saw it for what it was; absurd comedy.

We're quite fine with Gil or the others criticizing the work, and saying what they don't like about it. We take it in, and go from there. Will we listen? Maybe. Ma3 is a different beast from P&A, and we have to juggle absurd humor (which brought most of the readers here) with character development thrown in. We could say "screw character development," but we do want some of it. However, we don't want to change the strip into something that it's not. Certainly not this early in the game. Book 1 ends with the current storyline (in about 2-3 weeks) to celebrate 1 year of Ma3. In strip time, only about 1 week has past. We hope to move a bit faster in book 2. It is our goal. We'll do our best.

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Ray D »

Cheez, guys, what's with all the agitation? It's a comic strip...these people aren't real...

Of course, I would like this strip more if the characters were more fully developed (Uh, sorry about that DiDi--you know what I mean) and the laughs grew out of the personalities and real conflicts rather than just the situations. But I hope and expect that Dave and Giz will continue to add more dimensions to the characters as the story proceeds.

In the meantime, there is still a lot to like here, including some very funny gags (visual and verbal), and art that is far above the usual webcomic level. If we feel something needs improvement, we can say so politely and reasonably without calling each other names or crossing the usual boundaries of politeness. Dave and Giz are tolerant, and I think they listen to us.

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Azrael »

#-o *facepalm* #-o *headdesk*

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by Hobbamock »

Giz wrote:Yeah, Bear overreacted a bit, but he's human, and Bear is Bear.

Now in regards to character development...

It's often hard for a creator to be disassociated from their previous work. For instance, someone reading Ranma 1/2 from Takahashi might've been disappointed with Inuyasha. Rumiko was clearly not trying to recreate Ranma 1/2 with Inuyasha.

I'm mentioning this 'cause I know Gil is a P&A reader. It's normal for a P&A reader to come here and expect character development, however, Ma3 is not P&A. When we started Ma3, Dave and I knew most P&A readers wouldn't like, understand and follow Ma3. At first, readers were mad with Dillon and Matt for screwing Gary over like that, 'cause being mostly P&A readers (in the beginning of the strip,) they couldn't see the absurdity of the whole thing and how it really shouldn't be taken too seriously. New readers, that came from outside P&A, had no expectations, and saw it for what it was; absurd comedy.

We're quite fine with Gil or the others criticizing the work, and saying what they don't like about it. We take it in, and go from there. Will we listen? Maybe. Ma3 is a different beast from P&A, and we have to juggle absurd humor (which brought most of the readers here) with character development thrown in. We could say "screw character development," but we do want some of it. However, we don't want to change the strip into something that it's not. Certainly not this early in the game. Book 1 ends with the current storyline (in about 2-3 weeks) to celebrate 1 year of Ma3. In strip time, only about 1 week has past. We hope to move a bit faster in book 2. It is our goal. We'll do our best.
PLEASE DON'T CHANGE IT. I never read P&A until after I had been reading Ma3 religiously and you are right, I don't care for P&A. It is totally different with the exception of the artistic drawing. I like this the way it is. Things just seem to happen randomly, chaotically and crazy. It makes me want to find out what is going to happen next, not whether or not the characters actually develop. I'm not here to get some sort of insight to the meaning of life, I just want a cheap laugh. And if that means that Gary justifies grabbing a boob to see if he's really awake or Didi stupidly comparing a woman to Archie, then so be it. Everyone needs to lighten up and accept this for what it is and roll with it.
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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by JMac85 »

Heh, I'd like to see Gil's reaction to Electric Retard. :ymsmug:

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Re: 28-04-09 gulk gulk gulk

Post by firendrakendorf »

Hobbamock wrote:I never read P&A until after I had been reading Ma3 religiously and you are right, I don't care for P&A. It is totally different with the exception of the artistic drawing. I like this the way it is. Things just seem to happen randomly, chaotically and crazy. It makes me want to find out what is going to happen next, not whether or not the characters actually develop. I'm not here to get some sort of insight to the meaning of life, I just want a cheap laugh. And if that means that Gary justifies grabbing a boob to see if he's really awake or Didi stupidly comparing a woman to Archie, then so be it. Everyone needs to lighten up and accept this for what it is and roll with it.
My only issue with what you said is that "cheap laugh" may be a little demeaning to the work, but I do understand what you're trying to say. In my case, when I read a work I either like it or don't like it. After that point I may try to understand why it is that I like it or not. I try not to bring expectations to the table, because a)I'm lazy b)I think I'll enjoy the work better that way. That lack of expectation is what makes me generally not engage in plot speculation ("why bother? just hop along for the ride"). Since I try not to judge a work beforehand, I take it in its own terms, immersing myself in its world with little reference to other fictional worlds.

Now, after all that long and uncalled for bit about myself, I'll just add that I find Gary to be so ridiculous that what he does is funny; now his groping an unconscious Yuki is morally reprehensible, but I found it fascinating how he lingered thinking about the feel of the boobie... He's so bad, he's in another world. Now, Didi's issue is that she doesn't really focus on the situation or pay much attention to details (confusing names of boys, for example). Sandra tells her about the negative points of Archie but Didi doesn't stop and consider these points for what they are, but instead treats them as proof of the familiarity Sandra has with the character. I think taking the stereotype of the dumb blond to the limit of making her slightly (or greatly, depending on the reader) annoying is an excellent touch.

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