Archive - Sep 7, 2003

The Pram In The Hall

September 7, 2003 - 22:56 | Kip Manley

Cyril Connolly was a British literary critic who lived-

"Kip!"

Ah. Excuse me. Yes?

"What do you think?"

Of what?

"Of these rough layouts."

Well, I'm not exactly sure that's Molly, isn't it?

"That's Griffen."

Oh.

"It's the bit with the guitar. On the corner. Remember? So. What do you think?"

It looks good.

"You're just saying that."

No, really. I like the, uh. The thing, there. I can't wait to see it finished. Now, I need to get back to

Basil Flint by John Troutman

September 7, 2003 - 22:56 | Kelly J. Cooper

Deus ex machina - it's a great phrase. Although it's Latin, we can trace its origins as a concept back to Greek theater where its creation is generally attributed to the Athenian playwright Euripides, in the fifth century B.C. It means "god from a machine", and refers to a particular trick that many playwrights used when their plots got stuck or just to clean up the end of the story. They would put an actor dressed as one of the gods into some rigging and lower him onto the stage, as though he were descending from the heavens. This appearance of the god could bring a swift and fortuitous resolution to any problem. The Romans picked up the habit from the Greeks and we got the phrase from them.

Nowadays deus ex machina is considered a shortcut or a cheat, but it can still be a fun device. Especially when the god is the machine, or at least a robot with seemingly infinite powers descending from the sky to free the good guys and help end the first story of John Troutman's Basil Flint, P.I.

From Spork to Undead Romance -- Mnemesis' Sylvan Midgal

September 7, 2003 - 22:56 | Al Schroeder

Sylvan Migdal. With a first name like this, he almost had to get involved with fantasy. At SYLVAN MIGDAL'S EXTREMELY INTERESTING WEBCOMICS at www.webcomics.org, Sylvan has been pursuing such webcomics as Spork, Carface, the completed graphic novel A God's Life (slacker deities in a creation they inherited), and the current ongoing Mnemesis, an existential afterlife, and has been active with webcomics since March of 2001. He's a 19-year-old junior at The Cooper Union. He's lived in various Brooklyn apartments (with his pet dust bunnies) for 15 years, and has had his ceiling collapse on three separate occasions.

That last bit is no doubt good training for the thankless and often catastrophic job of being a web cartoonist.