Link

[rowyn]

To truly appreciate this rant, you need to have been reading comics in the late 80s, early 90s, when Rob Liefeld first hit it big as a comic book artist.

You know, if he'd just been a lousy artist, I wouldn't've minded so much. What drove me nuts about Liefeld is that he was insanely popular. He not only drew horribly, he inspired everyone in the industry to draw horribly too, so that they too could make pots of money for drawing characters that looked like crap.

So, yeah, I did have better things to do than read a rant about a sampling of Liefeld's worst drawings, but it felt so good to hear someone else say "Hey! Look! The emperor has no clothes!"

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Ooo. ZING!

See, now THAT's how to make a really biting critique. Class gets far more mileage than waving one's rhetorical arms about wildly and going, "&%$! %^&#! I mean, $%^!&!*!$! for real, man! Seriously, $#^&@!" as if that's going to somehow add more punch.

Some people get the idea that if you resort to curse words - well, man, you're really %&@#*$!%&$%&!*&$ serious now so we should LISTEN and take it, you know, *seriously*.

This is closely related to the phenomenon of using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS on a REGULAR BASIS, or ending every sentence with an exclamation point! No, not just one! It has to be TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS!! No, why even stop there?!?!?!?!! LET'S KEEP GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!11!!!

It's also not far off from ellipsis-addiction. I suffered from that malady in 4th grade. I had developed the idea that if you trailed off sentences into ellipses, that was dramatic.... It got to the point where, in one year's project to write a "novel" in a notebook, adding to it daily, every single sentence ended in an ellipsis.... Every one.... Really.... It was so dramatic....

But it's not just for 4th-graders. When I worked at the Evil Corporation, there was one co-worker who ended every sentence with multiple punctuation marks. If it was a period, that wasn't enough. It had to be three of them... And if it was a question, wouldn't it be better with three question marks??? And, of course, an exclamation ended with three!!! But even stranger, sometimes he'd end sentences with a comma, and that got duplicated as well,,, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but emphasis works best by contrast. It's just that, for some folks, it's not that they wish to contrast within their own vocabulary. (That is, most of the time, I'm calm and collected, but WHEN YOU REALLY GET ME RILED, OOO, WATCH OUT, BABY!) No, the contrast is apparently that everyone else talks in calm, mannered language, so therefore if they speak in all capital letters, all exclamation points, or all curse words, then every word from them must therefore be treated as extra-special by comparison with everyone else who doesn't resort to such measures.

I am not convinced that this is a terribly effective way of going about things. It's sort of like the Hollywood movie cliche of the fellow who is always calm and reserved and peaceful ... but, oh, finally somebody pushed him over the line, so now it's time to roll up his shirt-sleeves and, everybody watch out, it's time for a smack-down. But once you cross that line, it's not really special anymore. What if whatever pushed him "over the line" is merely the precursor to worse things? Can he really maintain the persona of "calm and collected" if he loses his cool the first time, but even worse things come down the line later? How will he react to them? Past this point, will it always be with sleeves rolled up and fists flying?

Or, take the tendency of some people to pack their comments to the very brim with much verbiage, incapable of making a simple point in a single sentence. Why, the ... oh ... wait a minute.

Now seems like a fine time to wrap things up.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I laughed at the reviews, but to play the devil's advocate, I believe strong language to be a spice. To use it overly much and without any art is to spoil the dish, not unlike serving a steak and then putting it under a six-inch heap of chili powder. To use it strongly but blended in the right way can make a dish that's spicy, and maybe not to everyone's taste, but can be delicious.

I tend to agree with you, however. The most widely appealing dish is the one that uses this spice sparingly, if at all.