Friday, July 17, 1998: Blue string theory

[NonsenseWords]

I think it's just so we can use that strip agai-- OH GOD MY EYES.

[Cactus Jack]

I don't like the girl one for two reasons

1. We know from other strips that the bird character is a wise ass, not a sweet innocent who would think giving string would make a difference

2. In the last panel Girl's strange facial expression reminds me of what a retard who just shit himself would look like.


As for the O&M one, I don't like the silent last panel. It creeps me out how Ozy is just staring into my soul like that.

[Doc Sigma]

[Chris]

Thats more like it! XD

[nickspoon]

That bird is such a dick.

[Arloest]

The Girl rendition of this strip is terrible, stop saying it's good!!

[NonsenseWords]

Just because it's Girl I'm not allowed to say that it's set up better? *sighs*

I don't have any nostalgia tied to these strips. I'm looking objectively, for the first time, at the Blue String O&M strip and comparing it to the redone one. I don't like Girl's artistic choices (her smiles are routinely scary as all hell), but the way it's presented is superior to the original. If the original O&M strip had been done with a silent smile at the end (and not staring directly at the camera), then it would be better, just knowing that the bird is supposed to be a smartass and Timulty is supposed to be the embodiment of innocence.

Girl is presented better, and more subtly, than the strip it's based off of. Frankly, I feel like I'm being talked down to in the O&M strip, like I can't figure out that the sweet gesture makes Ozy feel better. It's like we see the action, and then Ozy feels better-- and assumes that the audience is too stupid to figure it out, turns, and breaks the fourth wall just to make absolutely certain we know what's going on. It breaks the entire point of the strip; it's supposed to be a heartwarming little gesture, kind of like something you would snip out of a newspaper and hang on your office cubicle, and when you feel down, you look up, and see it, and smile. It doesn't work. To be honest, hearing about the Blue String strip in the original Girl thread, I expected it to be better constructed.

The Girl comic accomplishes this better through it's use of dialogue and silence. I'm not saying that Girl is a better strip -- it's really ruined by DCS's insistence on using these weird goofy expression that turn out more creepy than endearing -- but there is something to be said about looking back on a strip ten years later and finding a way to do it better. S/he found a way to do it better.

[Happy Rutabegas year]

retarded

[ruedii-X]*null*[/ruedii-x]