Star Power III: Fail to the Void!

[Trazoi]

I'd hoped that Star Power was going to be Mookie's vehicle to improve as a writer, but now I'm not so sure.

These species blurbs that look like they've been hastily thrown up are compounding the feeling that Mookie hasn't put much thought into his universe at all. So far it seems it's nearly all Garth who is putting the effort into Star Power.

[Mr. McGician]

I'd hoped that Star Power was going to be Mookie's vehicle to improve as a writer, but now I'm not so sure.

These species blurbs that look like they've been hastily thrown up are compounding the feeling that Mookie hasn't put much thought into his universe at all. So far it seems it's nearly all Garth who is putting the effort into Star Power.

I was thinking that Mookie might have had some speck of a good idea when he decided to start this comic. But all that we've seen so far is classic Mookie, and is so bland and derivative that I have the sinking feeling that Mookie really didn't have any good ideas and just made it set in space because he has sci-fi on the brain right now. Which means when his interests change yet again, he'll either drop the comic or we'll start seeing star-powered alien metal bands.

[Vinyadan]

Wait, what?

What?

That is some Stephenie Meyer-class BS right there. He doesn't listen to critique because it hurts his feelings? Nine Hells, Mookie, you're supposed to be a goddamn professional. Learn to act like one.

Regarding Mookie as a professional would be a mistake, as he writes fanfiction of his own series.
(I mean, yes, he should be a professional, but he really isn't.)

I'd hoped that Star Power was going to be Mookie's vehicle to improve as a writer, but now I'm not so sure.

These species blurbs that look like they've been hastily thrown up are compounding the feeling that Mookie hasn't put much thought into his universe at all. So far it seems it's nearly all Garth who is putting the effort into Star Power.

I think this is worse than DD. There is no personality in the plot or characters, and things are boring. Garth still produces impressive material, and he's the reason I keep reading on. But, to me, this is Maltak again.

I was thinking that Mookie might have had some speck of a good idea when he decided to start this comic. But all that we've seen so far is classic Mookie, and is so bland and derivative that I have the sinking feeling that Mookie really didn't have any good ideas and just made it set in space because he has sci-fi on the brain right now. Which means when his interests change yet again, he'll either drop the comic or we'll start seeing star-powered alien metal bands.

I totally agree. It's a pity he chose to follow a non-ironic approach, and instead sought for a démodé feel of knight in shining armour, especially as he manifestly doesn't have the skill needed to pull it off. But, after all, isn't Danica great?
The mistake with the gravity assist also rubbed me the wrong way. It's like the Da Vinci Code, when supposed experts manifest ignorance about Leonardo's reverse writing. It's something a 13 years old kid knows, if he has a minimum of interest for the subject.

[T-O-E]

I'd hoped that Star Power was going to be Mookie's vehicle to improve as a writer, but now I'm not so sure.

It's his vehicle to conventions.

[Vinyadan]

It's his vehicle to conventions.

Pun intended?

[Kwatsu]

I don't know if Mookie has literally said "hurts his feelings" as an excuse. However it did seem that after his fanbase revolted after the War in Hell arc in Dominic Deegan, what with the rape storyline and what happened to Siggy, he adopted a philosophy of "you can't please everyone, therefore don't worry who you displease and just do your thing however you like".

Wasn't that also the message of the Bland Arc in DD? (My snark re-read went over it not long ago.) Basically: if people criticise you but a few like what you do, just ignore the criticism and Do Your Own Thing.

It misses the point, since nine times out of ten, people aren't criticising you for not following your vision, since... Well, how could they? They can't see inside your head. They're criticising the execution of that vision. Which is where Mookie tends to stumble: he does have good ideas, he just has trouble with execution, largely because he isn't willing to impact his characters in any meaningful way. So he can't create tension or drama--only Dramatic Tension!! (tm) preferably accompanied by Dramatic Moodlighting--and without that, you can't care.

[Nerd-o-rama]

oh his feelings are hurt. boo. friggin' hoo.

fiction is made of suffering. it is the suffering of the author channeled into the suffering of the characters, channeled into the suffering of the fanbase, who make the author suffer even more.

makes sense why he isn't very good. he isn't willing to suffer for his art.

I think you've pinpointed the central core problem with Mookie's writing, or at least one of the two major ones. He assumes suffering is bad and something to be prevented, even for (virtuous) fictional characters. Emotional pain is to be avoided at all costs. That's why he never learns from any mistake he makes and why his heroes (defined as any character he deems a hero) never actually have a problem for longer than a week. At least not anymore. The War in Hell may have been awful writing, but I think it was the last time he had a main character endure so much as a setback.

I don't know if Mookie has literally said "hurts his feelings" as an excuse. However it did seem that after his fanbase revolted after the War in Hell arc in Dominic Deegan, what with the rape storyline and what happened to Siggy, he adopted a philosophy of "you can't please everyone, therefore don't worry who you displease and just do your thing however you like".

That's it exactly. It's not that criticism makes him break down or anything, he's just decided to deal with it by ignoring it entirely, whether delivered in-person or over the internet.

And now that you put it that way, I guess there is a reason why War in Hell was the last thing he wrote with meaningful conflict for the protagonists.

[T-O-E]

Truth be told, I have an aversion to internet forums in general. For any reason, for any website, for anything, I get a tiny dose of anxiety whenever I click the "Forums" button. Sometimes I feel like a boxing glove is going to fly out of my monitor and punch me. I just get this constant vibe of negativity, whether it's forums for a TV show, a video game, comic book or webcomic. Sometimes they are very useful sources of information, but I just always get overwhelmed by the arguing and/or complaints.

Had to go searching for this. The post was titled "my internet asparagus" which I at first assumed was a pun on aspergers. It was not.

Wasn't that also the message of the Bland Arc in DD? (My snark re-read went over it not long ago.) Basically: if people criticise you but a few like what you do, just ignore the criticism and Do Your Own Thing.

Then how come we were the half that stayed

Also Garth gave a post about his thought process concerning designing aliens. Special insight: give them faces. Also:

One thing I DON’T like about a lot of Star Trek style aliens is that they often end up as “humans with funny skin color” or “oddly shaped ears” but are otherwise nearly identical to human beings. I try hard to make sure my aliens are CLEARLY ALIEN, and this often happens most frequently by keeping human faces off of alien bodies. I’ll change shape of the skull, alter eye shape, number of eyes, shape of mouths, but most notably I don’t put human noses on aliens. Or at least, I’ve yet to do so. I think I do the same thing with ears. There’s something distinctly human about noses and ears for me. Not sure why, but they all too often feel like dead giveaways that “this is an actor in makeup.” So I try to avoid it. Which is shockingly easy. Even if you’re using the same parts, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and they all work is more-or-less the same fashion, the possible alterations to those parts you can make to make them eerily inhuman but still capable of forming decipherable expressions is nearly infinite. You can do a lot with a face.

Except IMO your aliens are still too humanoid. It's ok if that's what you're going for as a homage to stuff like Star Trek or Mass Effect but don't pretend it's anything else. Mass Effect was limited because most races had to be mapped onto a basic humanoid shape as it was the easier and cheaper option. As an artist, you have no real limits except for your ability and your imagination.

Also I found this.
Apparently it is designed to:

TVT does not allow certain articles and topics to be discussed, because of censorship policies ostensibly imposed by their advertisement sponsors. We are hosted on a service funded by donations, so we have no ads and no widespread censorship. We have a wide range of other benefits too: modern software, secure browsing, and administrators who listen to other opinions. For a fuller explanation of the schism, see Why We Forked TV Tropes.

I had a hunch about something so I put 'rape' in the search put and it came up with 11500 results.

[Welf]

Wait, what?

What?

That is some Stephenie Meyer-class BS right there. He doesn't listen to critique because it hurts his feelings? Nine Hells, Mookie, you're supposed to be a goddamn professional. Learn to act like one.

Criticism on the internet isn't always objective and polite.

[Lord_Gareth]

Criticism on the internet isn't always objective and polite.

Neither is criticism from publishers. A professional learns to deal and not throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Trazoi]

I think what Sweetie Welf was getting at was that a lot of creative "criticism" from the internet is along the lines of "die in a fire" except cruder in message and spelling. When you're getting a flood of messages like that it's hard to cherry pick out the criticism that's actually useful from the sewage.

[Vinyadan]

I think what Sweetie Welf was getting at was that a lot of creative "criticism" from the internet is along the lines of "die in a fire" except cruder in message and spelling. When you're getting a flood of messages like that it's hard to cherry pick out the criticism that's actually useful from the sewage.

Furthermore, there's a lot of people who think of themselves as critics, while they cannot even be classified as readers. When it comes to literature, the field is so big that everybody is ignorant, but some people really seem at a troglodytic level - problem is, they believe they are the next step in the evolution.

This problem exists in published critics, but is horribly developed in the Net. And websites like TVTropes are really easy to misunderstand in their purpose, and, even when understood, the content is often oversimplified and, in the mind of the reader, even more so. In the end, you can throw away much of what is proposed to you.

[T-O-E]

Mookie's work actually gets an overwhelmingly positive response from its intended audience. He's not going to change now.

[random11]

Race of chefs

I've got nothing.

[T-O-E]

My favourite sport is walking.


Mookie has offloaded two of Sci-fi humanity's most common distinguishing traits (adaptability, adventurism) to another species so I wonder why humans are so special.

[AgentPaper]

Race of chefs

I've got nothing.

Actually, this is much, much better than the other two entries. It's at least vaguely interesting. They aren't literally a race of chefs, it's just a major feature of their race as seen by outsiders.

Swimming being their primary sport because they're born in the water seems odd, though, since it's like saying running is our primary sport because we're born on land. I'd expect water-based sports to play a bigger role, but doing all sorts of things, from something like water-polo, to underwater football (coughblitzballcough), to underwater shotput.

But that's a minor gripe, and something I wouldn't be surprised to see even in a much better work, and it could easily be that "swimming" is meant to include such other sports and was just called that for brevity's sake.

More importantly, it mentioned not one, not two, but three major traits of the species, none of which are stereotypical, and I can't think of any race in any other fiction that has these exact characteristics (ignoring appearance). There probably is one somewhere (people have made up a LOT of aliens over the years), but the fact that there isn't an immediately obvious one is a good sign.

It's not exactly exemplary work, just average, but coming from Mookie, I'm frankly shocked. Until he ruins it later on when we visit their home planet, but for now, I'm happy with it.

[Mr. McGician]

The actual page was a lot less entertaining than the link's text led me to believe :( At least this race was given more than one distinguishing trait, as opposed to the "always lawful" or "always nice" ones.

Except IMO your aliens are still too humanoid. It's ok if that's what you're going for as a homage to stuff like Star Trek or Mass Effect but don't pretend it's anything else. Mass Effect was limited because most races had to be mapped onto a basic humanoid shape as it was the easier and cheaper option. As an artist, you have no real limits except for your ability and your imagination.

I was thinking this, too. Where's the creativity? Where's the talking fungus that reproduces by dividing itself and whose office has moisture generators and no lights because it requires a dark, damp environment? We saw a sentient plant in one panel, but that's about it. What's especially grating is how many freaking different alien species are shown, but they all look the same. It's like there are only two species: "human" and "alien," and to draw an "alien," draw something like a human but with different-colored skin and a weird face. The new Star Trek movies have the same problem, in my opinion. There are a zillion aliens thrown around that look like they were made by a random CGI alien generator program. It's not only unbelievable but also goes against the feel of the original TV show, where Spock was the only alien on the Enterprise and many of the aliens they encountered were truly bizarre.

[T-O-E]

This seems like another case of Mookie's (and Garth's I guess) cargo cult writing style. He sees a limitation, assumes it's natural --doesn't question it, even-- and applies it to another medium without thinking why it was done in the first place. It's very Mutilisesque. Guillermo del Toro explained that he wanted the monsters from Pacific Rim to resemble people dressed in monster costumes because he wanted to emulate the style of old Godzilla movies and this seems to have been a success. The most recent Godzilla movie showed a CGI-Godzilla with a lighter lower body (who needs legs when no-one's going to be in it) and this design was panned along with the movie while the one that isn't out yet goes back to the earlier design.

I think Mookie actually did a better job with the council of archmages in DD, appearance-wise. There was a city-sized manta ray, a flying microscopic parasite with a humanoid rider, a sapient burst of wind and a praying mantis that actually looked kind of cool. This is odd because the archmages were introduced into the story because Mookie was really into Green Lantern which was the start of a sci-fi obsession that ended up creating Star Power. There are a lot of interesting Green Lantern characters like a planet, a math equation and even a black guy. It's just strange that once Mookie had the chance to actually make a sci-fi comic that he went with the blandest things imaginable. Perhaps he decided he liks Mass Effect more.

I would have tried to make the Scintillians look very different from humans because the Countess is basically just a blue woman with no ears (sorry Garth) and a long tongue. Doing this would emphasise that they have a unique and to us bizarre thought process that could have made the Countess's decision to off her species make some kind of logical sense. I mean, they live in Timeless Space which actually sounds kind of cool. You've got to have a vastly different biology and way of thinking, surely? As she is, we just see her as a flat evil character. Making her less human could actually make her more understandable.

I was reading the SA forums thread on Tvtropes and someone picked a particularly bad example that jumped out at me. The troper wanted to resolve a problem with his writing, the problem being that his hero didn't have enough healing potions to defeat a villain. He did not conider giving his hero more potions because they're expensive and he wouldn't be able to afford them and he couldn't make them more effective because that's not how it works in his setting. The SA goon mocked the troper's obsession with 'the great clomping foot of nerdism' that is world > plot but what I want to know is why the troper has healing potions at all. They are necessary in a video game or RPG but not in a story. You can have them and they can benefit the story but it seemed like the troper didn't consider not having them, as if they were as universal as gravity. That is, he did not make a conscious choice over whether or not to include them. This seems very Mookie to me.

Garth's thought process does seem to be an improvement over Mookie's. A few years ago he wrote this when asked about his decision to give snake-women breasts:

Because, quite frankly, I like boobies

(paraphrased. I couldn't find the exact quote)

It's almost like Mookie takes but cannot contribute anything of his own or combine with any sort of thought or meaning. It's not new, just an old thing debased. The ideas seem like they could be executed well because they already have been, which is why Mookie mangled them. Mookie described this best when he wrote:

When the Beast and its servants take something, they leave nothing behind. The theft is absolute

Mookie has pointed out that he looks very similar to King Dave...

I didn't realize it at the time, but I now resemble my own comic's most dangerous villain more than Dave does.

I guess I really am my own worst enemy.

What was my point again?

(I am a little bit tipsy so I apologise that this post is more incoherent and rambling than usual).

Spoiler

Show

I read Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before but I didn't grasp a lot of it. How fortunate for me that the Tvtropes Critical Editions paperback is out. I'm glad I can learn about it from an academic resource and it looks great next to my copy of King Lear in Alphabetical Order. Here's a teaser:

'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Mary Sue)

Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, 188 (The Pretentious Latin Motto / Smart People Know Latin)
I
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo….
His father (Orphan's Ordel: Subverted, Stephen is not an orphan) told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo (Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality). The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived (Alliterative Name): she sold lemon platt.

O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.

He sang that song. That was his song.

O, the green wothe botheth (Baby Talk)

When you wet the bed (Wetting the Bed) first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.
His mother had a nicer smell than his father (Oedipus Complex).'

I have no idea why they put hyperlinks in a physical book.

[AgentPaper]

While it might be interesting to have more alien aliens, that's not really something I'd call a flaw in the comic so far. It's problems are much more fundamental than that. The countess being a hovering mass of jelly-like substance and ears would make her look more alien, but it wouldn't make her actions any less stupid or terrible.

A bigger issue, is that the characterization is backwards. Instead of "Character X does Y, so they're evil", it's "Character X is evil, so they do Y." The same thing goes for good characters, who always do the "good" thing even when it doesn't make any sense for them. Their primary characterizations are "good guy" and "bad guy". This is why the side-characters are often so much more interesting, because most of them don't fall into the "good guy" or "bad guy" group, and thus are much more free to have their own character, such as what we've seen with Da Chief.


This is exactly the kind of thing that Mookie would (probably) eventually figure out if he listened to critiques. While it's true that a lot of critiques are offensive and crudely made, that doesn't stop them from being valuable. If anything, I would rate such critiques more useful than supposedly "helpful" critiques that try to tell the author what they did wrong and how to fix it. Sometimes those can be useful, but more often they're either wrong, or right for the wrong reasons, which can be just as bad if not worse.

Even if the advice is right, it usually doesn't matter because if you don't understand the reasons that it's right, then you'll just cause more problems for yourself. Instead, the best way to deal with criticism is to read between the lines. Look at what people like, what they don't like, what they feel strongly about, and what they don't feel strongly about. Making your readers upset is better than making them not care, and if making them upset was your intent, such as with a tragic scene or something that an evil person did, then your readers being in an uproar is a good sign.

Lots of crude, emotional negative feedback means you must be doing something right, to make them care that much about what you're doing. Your job is to figure out what made them care, and how to make them keep caring.

If Mookie was aware of how upset he makes everyone in this thread when we all get up in arms about how stupid some plot device is, and figured out how to do that on purpose, then he could easily become a great writer without his writing style actually changing much, if at all. An entertaining train wreck is still entertainment, after all, and if he became a master of writing spectacular trainwreck stories, that would be great. However, because he doesn't know what he's doing, he doesn't do it very consistently and too often just brings out an exasperated "meh", which causes people to stop watching. Some of us have obviously stuck around to watch anyways, but I would guess that most of his readers either haven't seen enough actually good fiction to notice the flaws, aren't invested enough to look for them, or are too stupid to see them.

[Kwatsu]

Actually, this is much, much better than the other two entries. It's at least vaguely interesting. They aren't literally a race of chefs, it's just a major feature of their race as seen by outsiders.

They sound exactly like the Nagasta from DD. Remember? Amphibious cities, very into seafood, swim everywhere because they apparently haven't developed vehicles or learned to tame mounts...

[slayerx]

Race of chefs

I've got nothing.

Doesn't sound like that at all. Saying they are known for their cuisine sounds the same as saying Italians are known for their cuisine. Its not saying they are literally a race of chef's, just that their people are known for making good food. Furtharmore there were more details than just that... its a brief description but atleast they do come off as being more diverse and not just a race defined by a single characteristic.

Frankly i'm more annoyed that mookie actually calls them "diverse"; like being "diverse" is an unusual trait when it SHOULD be the most common trait. Heck I might not even mind having some races defined by a single trait IF we were also told that such cases were unusual.

Also refferring to swimming as their most popular sports... like other said that's like saying running should be our most popular sport because we can walk. Should have made reference to water-based sports, rather than just swimming

They sound exactly like the Nagasta from DD. Remember? Amphibious cities, very into seafood, swim everywhere because they apparently haven't developed vehicles or learned to tame mounts...

Ya one simple question... How do they move large cargo and objects around? Lack of thought right there

[Lord Raziere]

Race of chefs

I've got nothing.

New idea! The Boringians. They are so well-rounded they do lots of things, also have a random trait that they are sort of known for. There is not enough space to elaborate more.

yea, at least the other two had character. this just lacks substance. its a listing of a bunch of traits and not really saying anything definitive.

[Traab]

New idea! The Boringians. They are so well-rounded they do lots of things, also have a random trait that they are sort of known for. There is not enough space to elaborate more.

yea, at least the other two had character. this just lacks substance. its a listing of a bunch of traits and not really saying anything definitive.

So wait, first everyone gripes about them being defined by a rather specific trait, now that he puts in a solid list of traits and various things the race as a whole tends to do its generic and boring? I think I am starting to understand why mookie doesnt give a damn about reader input.

[MReav]

So wait, first everyone gripes about them being defined by a rather specific trait, now that he puts in a solid list of traits and various things the race as a whole tends to do its generic and boring? I think I am starting to understand why mookie doesnt give a damn about reader input.

Yeah, Mookie's writing leaves much to be desired, but don't go all 'damned if you do, damned if you don't.'

[Vinyadan]

So wait, first everyone gripes about them being defined by a rather specific trait, now that he puts in a solid list of traits and various things the race as a whole tends to do its generic and boring? I think I am starting to understand why mookie doesnt give a damn about reader input.

Foolish sea-waves
devour reject the sea-shores
such is this forum.

(I suck at poetry, I don't have much experience with haikus and I can't count syllables in English, so yeah, feel my pain).

[Nerd-o-rama]

Foolish sea-waves
devour reject the sea-shores
such is this forum.

(I suck at poetry, I don't have much experience with haikus and I can't count syllables in English, so yeah, feel my pain).

That's actually pretty good in terms of the appeal of a haiku (conveying a complex thought in very few words), though you are a syllable short on the first line and if you were a professional poet you'd probably need to sub that last line for more imagery and make the reader guess what the subject was.

[Mewtarthio]

Today's is better than the other two, since he's at least said multiple things about their culture, but it's still pretty simplistic. The single trait of this race is "amphibian": They are amphibious, therefore they can adapt to multiple environments, they make great seafood, and they're good at aquatic sports.

I was reading the SA forums thread on Tvtropes and someone picked a particularly bad example that jumped out at me. The troper wanted to resolve a problem with his writing, the problem being that his hero didn't have enough healing potions to defeat a villain. He did not conider giving his hero more potions because they're expensive and he wouldn't be able to afford them and he couldn't make them more effective because that's not how it works in his setting. The SA goon mocked the troper's obsession with 'the great clomping foot of nerdism' that is world > plot but what I want to know is why the troper has healing potions at all. They are necessary in a video game or RPG but not in a story. You can have them and they can benefit the story but it seemed like the troper didn't consider not having them, as if they were as universal as gravity. That is, he did not make a conscious choice over whether or not to include them. This seems very Mookie to me.

What sort of story makes a big deal about the exact price of healing potions, the exact HP healed by the potions, and the exact HP the hero has left? Heck, I can't even imagine a story in which a hero chugs four healing potions in a single scene* (the proper narrative use of a healing potion is to imply that someone will be seriously injured later in the story and will need the healing potion to save them; you can't have four narratively meaningful injuries in a single fight!).

*Unless the potion-use is a regular behavior, so you've got the hero reliably taking swigs from his Hip Flask of Healing after after every altercation. In which case, the exact amount of healing he has left is about as relevant as the exact amount of liquid assets Bruce Wayne has available.

[random11]

New idea! The Boringians. They are so well-rounded they do lots of things, also have a random trait that they are sort of known for. There is not enough space to elaborate more.

That pretty much describes humans in most sci-fi/fantasy settings.

[Lord Raziere]

ok, I'll retract my previous statement. that was the wrong criticism.

revised statement:
New race! The Humaquas. Humans. but AQUATIC.

[Vinyadan]

That's actually pretty good in terms of the appeal of a haiku (conveying a complex thought in very few words), though you are a syllable short on the first line and if you were a professional poet you'd probably need to sub that last line for more imagery and make the reader guess what the subject was.

Fooled by the mute -e-! Curses!

Foolishly sea-waves
devour reject the sea-shores
write the running sands.

Yessshhh... better than before.