Comics about digital games
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Comments: 3 (latest 5 days later)
Tagged: mechanical turk, online poker, quick links, rock band, comics
A cheap topic, perhaps -- there are web-comics about everything. But I stumbled across two of these this week, and was reminded about the third. So let us venture forth.
(Links are to the first strip of each comic.)
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+EV -- Bobby Crosby
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Clockwork Game -- Jane Irwin
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My Name is Might Have Been -- Catherynne M. Valente, Ferrett Steinmetz, Avery A. Liell-Kok
To be honest, the binding thread across these three comics is my reaction: "Why... would somebody... be writing a comic... about that?" (Picture plaintive gesticulation of at least three limbs.) I plead guilty to the freak show. In each case, however, there is an answer to the question.
+EV is written to the audience of a great and powerful online gaming industry -- of which I know practically nothing. (I even have friends who work in that industry! But the all-seeing eye of Zarf is really pretty nearsighted and parochial. I stick with my non-third-person adventure games. It's a life.)
Clockwork Game concerns a piece of gaming history. It's too young a strip for the plot to be apparent, but I'm intrigued.
And My Name is Might Have Been is self-justifying. I won't spoil it.
Comments imported from Gameshelf
Andrew Plotkin
(June 6, 2008 at 12:32 PM):
I didn't even know there was an epic story -- I've only heard single-note references to the Turk's existence. (Admittedly one such reference was on the "Terminator" TV show, which was pretty awesome.)
I wasn't sure whether to expect the plot to branch out into dirigibles and spies and secret societies and sentient swarms of African honeybees. Mind you, now that I know you're doing history, I'm still not sure whether to expect that...
Thanks for dropping by our humble blog, and I will.
Jane Irwin
(June 10, 2008 at 8:51 AM):
Well, I can't promise you dirigibles, but I can guarantee you some recognizable historical figures. Though if you count all the people who keep their mouths shut about The Turk's inner workings, I guess that'd count as a secret society.
And thanks for dropping by my humble webcomic! ;)
Why? 'Cause I'm a giant history nerd, and I needed a break from my regular series. ;)
Seriously, though -- I consider Clockwork Game a big portfolio piece. I need to learn to ink better, to draw costumes and crowds and architecture, and to adapt a huge, rambling, trivia-infested epic into a readable, enjoyably-paced story.
The Turk's history is this incredible study of The Uncanny Valley and western society's reaction to it, and also a really outstanding "road movie" as well. The opening chessgame is the slowest and longest scene in the book -- it really picks up afterwards.
Hope you keep reading!