My Favorite Webcomics From Yesterday

Kristofer Straub is one of my favorite writers churning out webcomics on a regular basis right now. For the most part, he's outgrown his early tendency toward overcleverness. I absolutely loved the giant Starslip Crisis collection I picked up at Comic-Con, which represents his best effort to date.

Even so, my heart sank at this installment of the series. I felt I knew where it was going, and I was right. Kris's earlier Checkerboard Nightmare managed to be navel-gazing comics satire yet mostly funny. But the Starslip Comic-Con sequence was contrived, cliched (ha ha! Trekkers are geeky!) and embarrassing (a webcomic that claims webcomics are widely ignored? Boo hoo poor you). Like a great comedic actor stuck in a cheesy movie, protagonist Vanderbeam struggled to mine good jokes from poor material.

And then Kris pulled out his hole card, and Starslip's plot roared back to life. In yesterday's installment, Vanderbeam commits more deeply to a passion that threatens to consume him, for a dead woman whom he barely knew. He's creating an A.I. more advanced than anything in his time, and although he takes some precautions, he's mucking around with the timestream and that's never a good idea. There will be consequences. And yet I can't help but root for him-- whether he's an old fop, a pompous aristocrat or an impulsive commander, in his heart Vanderbeam is just a lonely man who wants to be loved.

And speaking of love, one of the emotional highlights of Sluggy Freelance has been the improbable bond between its protagonist and an omnivorous alien. Yesterday, that bond may have come to an end:

"I feel like I'm never going to forgive you for it."

Sluggy has snatched happiness from the jaws of tragedy before. But I have a bad feeling about this.

"Heart of Hearts," Concluding Thoughts

Here's the story. And here's the commentary.

Since the Sluggy forums have some rules about speculation, these observations are going here rather than there. If you're not interested in Sluggy, proceed to the next post, because this level of fannish overanalysis can be lethal to the underexposed.

The First Couple of Sluggy Freelance have been doing the will-they-or-won't-they dance for almost a decade (in real time, at least). For me the question has become "Will they? WHY DON'T THEY?"

Sluggites know the official line: Torg refuses to get together with Zoë because as long as Oasis, the Torg-lovin' death machine, is out there somewhere, then dating Zoë is as good as killing her.

With all due respect to Torg and Pete Abrams, though, I don't buy that.

We don't know exactly what happened between this scene and this one, but it certainly seems that Torg lost little time forging a relationship with an alternate-reality Zoë, despite being Public Enemy Number One to an entire dimension of demons, which would put anyone who got close to him in even more danger than everyone else.

This would be after the curse of Torg's love interests was already well-established (one dead, one insane, and one dead, then insane, then dead again, insane some more, whoops dead, currently MIA to Torg).

Okay, there are qualifiers: different Zoë was sort of a "substitute," Torg was fairly convinced that he and she were going to die pretty soon no matter what, and her safety was clearly important to him. But if her safety were the only factor at play, Torg would've drugged her, packed her off to Quebec, and moved without a forwarding address. He does the right thing when the choice is clear, but he likes to avoid serious decisions when he can-- and he's not made of stone.

Torg's scared of a relationship with Zoë for many reasons, and Oasis is just the one that sounds the most noble. But even so, he's sent Zoë some pretty clear signals.

Bottom line: If Zoë started really pushing this relationship, or even sent some signals of her own that Torg didn't have to capture or destroy an immortal assassin just to earn dinner and a movie, I'm pretty sure Torg would cave.

That makes Zoë, not Torg, the primary obstacle.

Zoë is unaware of the depths of Torg's feelings-- but not that unaware. She doesn't think she's particularly beautiful-- but she doesn't think she's chopped liver, either. She would acknowledge she worries deeply about Torg, but would never say those feelings run deeper than friendship-- except when she almost did. Living with him had to set off a few alarm bells, at least on the subconscious level, where she rarely goes but where her shoulder sprites dwell, and where they influence her...

But nothing happened.

Not that this is unusual. Sexually and romantically compatible people stay in friendships all the time, and never make that jump. But with all the baggage these two have accumulated, the only reason for Zoë not to at least consciously contemplate this... is if something prevents her.

It's not a question of good versus evil. There are both selfless and selfish reasons to embark on such a relationship. It might be a question of Freudian eros versus thanatos, the life-impulse versus the death-impulse. Whatever it is, I think it's deep in her, and it might be related to her more recent behavior pattern of throwing away relationships for a broadcasting company whose loyalty to her is fragile at best. If so, it's a much bigger danger to her than Oasis is, and she'll need to address the source, not just the symptoms.

Here's hoping she figures it out. The clock is ticking.

P.S.: I said earlier that I didn't know if I had a third Sluggy idea I liked as much as the two for the stories I've done. Thanks to Clay Yount, I now do: "Where's Sasha now?" Let's see what my schedule looks like in 2009.

Looking To Be A Good Week.

The DDOS is well behind us now, and I'm getting ready to roll out some new projects this week! Kicking things off, I've finally gotten rid of that ugly pile of white on black that I've been calling a homepage. Clearly the new design needs a few things added to it-- I gotta get links to the guest storylines back in there, for one thing-- but I like the new minimalist look. It's kinda "oldschool Google."

And speaking of guest storylines, anyone who enjoys the things Gisele and I do together should head on over to Sluggy Freelance, starting midnight tonight. I've put a lot of my own heart into "Heart of Hearts," and worked closely with Pete Abrams to make sure it stays true to his characters. I hope the results are something you can enjoy whether you know Sluggy or not.