2013-10-11 Tao absurdo

[Spidrift]

These delusions take on a whole new dimension. When she talked of Sandra plotting treachery I thought it was just her vilifying her, but I think she truly believes that. How else could she think that Gary could be devious?

Uh huh. Like I said, she initially appeared to be narcissistic and melodramatic, but now it seems she's just nuts.

Which I'd have thought would be a disappointment for people who wanted to see her punished for being a bad person. Before, that seemed vaguely like justice; now, it's like wanting Yuki punished for her rage fugues; mere pointless sadism. The poor woman needs psychiatric treatment, not punishment. Anyhow, on current form, no defeats or humiliation would actually register with her; she'd just create a new delusion to encompass them.

[Error of Logic]

Ugh. That horrible, woman-shaped streak of vanity...

[Fluffy]

Huu, so this the reason why Senna and Sandra are back on speaking terms. Senna helps because she thinks it will be detrimental to Sandra. Soooooo like Senna, yet somehow disappointing.

Yeah. Senna goes from narcissistic and a bit mercurial to totally barking mad. We're used to having comedy plots driven by character stupidity, especially round here, but now we're getting nothing but plots that depend on character insanity.

I'm not seeing her any more self absorbed/self deluded than she's ever been (this is the same woman who claims that Sandra was such a grump because Sandra was lazy, that the only reason that Domenico chose to use Sandra instead of her in his new photo gig was based on black magic and not Sandra's natural good looks and that Sandra lost her job simply because she was spotted in a video game shop. Thinking that Gary is trying to sabotage Sandra's modeling career for her sake just falls into that same narcissistic category that has always been there).

Geez - whatever happened to the 'this is a sex farce comedy and stereotypes are exaggerated for the sake of the rule of funny'. Guess that reasoning goes out the window when a character you like is used in that very context, huh?

Not helped today by the first panel not quite working artistically. Giz has got the hang of blending her characters with photo backgrounds, but this just looks like a cartoon glued on top of a photograph.

I think Eisu does as good a job at blending two visual formats as Giz does. I think you're just being incredibly nitpicky.

And giving advice to someone on how to improve a skill that you yourself admit to not being an expert about? Talk about being presumptuous.

Yeah, well.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Spidrift. :/

[Spidrift]

I'm not seeing her any more self absorbed/self deluded than she's ever been (this is the same woman who claims that Sandra was such a grump because Sandra was lazy, that the only reason that Domenico chose to use Sandra instead of her in his new photo gig was based on black magic and not Sandra's natural good looks and that Sandra lost her job simply because she was spotted in a video game shop. Thinking that Gary is trying to sabotage Sandra's modeling career for her sake just falls into that same narcissistic category that has always been there).

She's exactly as narcissistic as she's always been. However, she previously appeared to have some connection to reality. The stuff about black magic could be taken as spinning a good story for the fun of it; the rest was just routine arrogant snottiness. This latest stuff is where, for me, she goes across the line from taking a hostile view of some subjects to downright delusional and disconnected from reality. Bad turns out to be mad.

It's entirely possible that I misread the "black magic" strip, and that Senna was really meant to believe all that stuff. If so, I made a classic Ma3 reader mistake of assuming too much. We've all been there.

Geez - whatever happened to the 'this is a sex farce comedy and stereotypes are exaggerated for the sake of the rule of funny'. Guess that reasoning goes out the window when a character you like is used in that very context, huh?

I "liked" Senna in the sense of thinking that she made a good antagonist figure. Mean, narcissistic, and arrogant, maybe a little bit deluded, sure; that's what made her good as a problem for Sandra and a life lesson for Gary. And all those traits seemed to be exaggerated for comic effect, which was also cool. But now, she's stopped looking like an exaggerated narcissist and started looking like an outright crazy person. Completely delusional crazy people don't make good antagonists, they just make arbitrary plot devices.

I think Eisu does as good a job at blending two visual formats as Giz does.

You think, I think; this is all just opinion, clearly labelled as such.

[CaliforniaDave]

I'd be willing to bet that Gary knows enough about this subject to be a tour guide at this museum.

Senna's narcissism is veering dangerously into Kuzco territory.

[Fluffy]

At least Kuzco eventually snapped out of it after some harrowing adventures, which taught him humility and to care about the welfare of others less fortunate than himself.

You'd figure Senna would have learned such lessons a long while back, given her more humble beginnings as a waitress. But, it looks like after she was discovered and started making the big bucks, she completely forgot what it was like to be an average person and became the narcissistic egomaniac she is today (like so many models in the industry).

['J']

I'd be willing to bet that Gary knows enough about this subject to be a tour guide at this museum.

personally, i'm rather surprised he actually knows anything at all. i always thought of gary as the type of comic fan who could recite the individual character biography of every x-man, but not know what 'masking' or 'closure' mean, much less the actual history of the medium.

[Spidrift]

To be fair, he is a fairly serious wannabe artist (and being written by an artist, for whatever that implies). He's likely to have a bit of necessary interest in the technicalities.

You'd figure Senna would have learned such lessons a long while back, given her more humble beginnings as a waitress.

I'll refrain from comment on some waitstaff I've encountered. And leave it to others to track down the Human League's "Don't You Want Me?" On YouTube.

Edit: Or Not.

Double post merged. The DAMNed

[Schmorgluck]

Holy Shit! I didn't know about "style atome" as a notion, much less about its relationship to Marcinelle-style bande dessinée. And I'm a big fan of Franquin. Nothing beats Gaston Lagaffe and Idées Noires in their respective categories (the both of which merge weirdly in some works Franquin did for Amnesty International).

[Fluffy]

You'd figure Senna would have learned such lessons a long while back, given her more humble beginnings as a waitress.

I'll refrain from comment on some waitstaff I've encountered. And leave it to others uo track down the Human League's "Don't You Want Me?" On YouTube.

I'm sure the majority of us in this forum have encountered snobbish/rude waiters/waitresses at some point in our lives. Still, it doesn't negate the fact that the job itself is thankless one - having to deal with less than amicable customers and screaming children for 8+ hours a day for minimum wage is not easy.

[Schmorgluck]

I'm sure the majority of us in this forum have encountered snobbish/rude waiters/waitresses at some point in our lives.

Apropos, there's a worldwide consensus for rude waiters being a staple "feature" of Paris. To the point that the French fake news website Le Gorafi (inspired by The Onion) made a joke about it, speaking of a fake Parisian waiter who shocked people with his uncharacteristic friendliness.

I'm not sure why I'm saying this.

[Spidrift]

I'm sure the majority of us in this forum have encountered snobbish/rude waiters/waitresses at some point in our lives. Still, it doesn't negate the fact that the job itself is thankless one - having to deal with less than amicable customers and screaming children for 8+ hours a day for minimum wage is not easy.

However, while some people might come out of that with a bunch of sympathy for the underdog, some are just going to end up embittered and hardened (and some may just master the art of blanking on the whole thing, and remain amazingly unaffected). Someone who goes in with a predisposition towards not giving a damn about other people will just come out with that attitude confirmed. "It's every woman for herself, and people suck."

Aside from which, I could imagine that Senna's gig was in the sort of place that selects staff for good looks and a chilly, detached attitude. All-black staff uniforms, monosyllabic responses, and eye-watering prices. That or somewhere so cheap and tacky that she came out with a vicious determination never to slip back to that level again.

(All of which, by the way, is pure fanfic wankery. As are all other guesses about character backstories in these comics. However much fun it is to guess, I don't think that any of these characters really have backstories. Snippets of past history in some cases, but no real stories.)

[Geeno]

Yeah - it's sort of the self-made man syndrome. "I clawed my way up on my own, why can't they?"
The self-made are often the worst about looking down at the less fortunate.
Everyone thinks of themselves as normal, so when they do something extraordinary, they tend to regard those who can't do it as inferior.

[Zafnak]

Wow... uhhh... thank you, sensei... I will take all that you teach me under advisement for future strips, sir, because wow, you seem to know a lot about how to fix my shit... thank you... I cannot fix this one though, no time as I have other jobs to do as well and cannot spend anymore time on it your excellency but I will try my best in the future not to disappoint you with my mediocre photo and drawing blending due to constraint of time on my end as I'm also working on other stuff as I've mentioned before... but this is no excuse for my lackluster drawing...

Man, I hate disappointing Spidrift the great with my bland and inexcusably bad drawing... I am now going to go work on my other job in utter sadness cos I didn't blend the photograph of the museum and my crisp drawing line well enough... damn my slapping my doodles on a photo skills!

Sarcasm! For The Win!!!

Yeah, well.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Spidrift. :/

I gotcha one better. People who live in bamboo houses shouldn't throw pandas!

Double post merged and quote fixed. The DAMNed

[StEligius]

Wow, Gary has found his calling, English language tour guide for the Belgian Comic Strip Center!

Few could do the job with his level of enthusiasm.