astridv | (no subject)

I just came from a party where I met the friend of a friend... we’d met at the movies a couple weeks ago, she’s in fandom (not Buffy, I forget which), I gave her the link to the Smile Time comic. Then today I ask her how she liked it, and she says, yeah, she like, and by the way, three of her friends were all, "What, you know her?"

Which poses two questions.
1. How frikkin' awesome is this?
2. How many people have read this thing, if at least three people in my own town know about it? I really wish I’d installed a counter or something, now I’ll never know. Or is there actually a LJ tool that gives you a hit status of a certain post? Do they collect that sort of info?

And now, since I’m already friends locked, for a spot of bitching. I’m not in the habit of doing that... don’t think I’ve ever done that before... but this guy is just too much, and I don’t want to risk attracting an obvious troll: Mark "I'm not a misogynist but I play one on Lee Goldberg's blog" York replies to the fic defenders, once more confirming that he has the IQ of a watermelon.

Mark says:That's the biggest load of horse hockey I've ever read. That's my strong opinion but one backed up by law and universal ethics, not some wild relativistic carte blanche to pilfer original work. At its worst it's character defamation. Not all opinions are created equal. Some have a foundation in reality.
( leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2006/09/am_i_a_fanficce.html#comment-23161773 )

Universal Ethics, WTF? And here I thought that‘s basically an oxymoron.

Speaking of morons... other pearls of wisdom from Mr. York:

What a surprise? A woman fanfictress like Rommel. I think the "We" says it all. We women thieves sisters in arms and all. A defender of stolen crap by a writer of it. Yawn. Such blatant shillery."

"You could explain why it is that women are defending this thievery? Why is that? Is it something hard-wired that allows them to just cast aside established rules because they happen to want something?"

Jeez. Issues much? I have no idea why he’s trying to make this whole thing about gender issues since that’s a) inaccurate and b) not exactly helping his side of the debate. It’s a giant, completely useless red herring. Traditionally, if you use shifty debating techniques you do it to make the other side look bad, not your own. I’m puzzled.

*deep breath* Okay, all better now.

[eta: now he's done bashing women and has moved on:

Ey-up makes a lot of sense. That must be why she is having so much trouble with the German take on what a fan can and should be able to do.

Wow, that man is a fucking idiot.]

Also, to get back to the productive side of things, page six is almost completely coloured and page seven more than halfway inked. Maybe I’ll finish even both of that tonight.

[eta: unlocked]

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Okay, so, I first saw Buffy in April. I started looking into fandom around May, still not having seen all the eps. I signed up for all these mailing lists. One of the very first things I clicked on *ever* in relation to Buffverse was someone just saying, "YOU *HAVE* TO SEE THIS IT'S THE MOST BADASS THING EVER." It was your Smile Time comic. I hadn't even seen the ep yet, but I read this comic, and it was the most badass thing ever. I made my parents read it. I think I sent links to my friends. I don't do that with fanfic, because no matter how good a fanfic is, I'd probably get the question, "but *why* would someone do this?" But people see that comic, and they don't question. They're just riveted. And they say, "That? Is badass." It just doesn't surprise me that everyone and their mom has seen it.

Mark's lame.

This was in 2005, of course.

This was in 2005, of course.

Wow, for some reason I always thought you'd been around much longer.

But people see that comic, and they don't question. They're just riveted.

Huh, I think that's true. And isn't that weird? Because that's fanfic right there, just another genre. Why is comic so much more easily accepted than prose fic? It's not like the legal and ethical arguments are much different for both cases. Artwork just has it easier to catch the reader's attention because all it takes is a glance. Means a lot more people would probably come to like fic if they gave it a chance.

Artwork just has it easier to catch the reader's attention because all it takes is a glance. Means a lot more people would probably come to like fic if they gave it a chance.

Yes, I think so too. But if only most fanfic were as high quality as that comic!