New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby mctek » August 6th, 2012, 6:03 pm

To be Honest Begbie, i am not attacking you, all the stuff i pointed out for your work is mostly cause this is what i also suffer from in my own 2D work. So it was kind of deja voo when I saw the artwork. I think alot of ppl were expecting this issue to be the last and truly big and epic end to a 2 year hiatus story. Sex is fine, it's what the site is for, but we also just can't abandon story either, it's also what readers pay for.

That said, I'm more concern with how my characters were treated and not the all out sex filled part. I was sratching my head on how poorly they were treated here, there was no update to how the characters behave now, how it could have improved the dramatic end. Show that Ring Mistress is a bad ass, even went losing to the heroines, or showing the twins giving the proper respond to the situation at hand. I've even told trish those characters are not primarily made for MC, I made them with the goal in mind to work more for Finister Foul's BSM stories as he is also co owner to those characters as well.

Tek~
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Tony » August 6th, 2012, 6:23 pm

begbie_rentonspud wrote:So in closing, I wanted to make a fun issue. And apparently, I failed


Not in my mind. I like the issue and the extra parts. A little play before the Climax. (Sorry, finale)

The biggest problem was to watch you try to finish the story two years late. And I'll bet you'll even finish the story without conflicts to the timeline that already established even though your story started before many currently published tales. After all, if we didn't have the last two years of stories, we'd be asking "what's going to happen?" Yet we already know a favorite Asian of mine is really German. And Kitty is needed to save the day. (Somehow, I still can't imagine how they are going to pull that off while keeping her in character!) While S & S didn't realize their step-mom knows how to swear. And that A.C. Quire will seem to collect everyone imaginable without actually doing anything with them. (Ok, that last part wasn't entirely fair, he's only been collecting for 6 issues now...)

So the only thing you really need to do is finish this story line up and start a new one because I've been enjoying this one for a while and I'd like to see more.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby begbie_rentonspud » August 6th, 2012, 8:10 pm

Tony wrote:
begbie_rentonspud wrote:So in closing, I wanted to make a fun issue. And apparently, I failed


Not in my mind. I like the issue and the extra parts. A little play before the Climax. (Sorry, finale)

The biggest problem was to watch you try to finish the story two years late. And I'll bet you'll even finish the story without conflicts to the timeline that already established even though your story started before many currently published tales. After all, if we didn't have the last two years of stories, we'd be asking "what's going to happen?" Yet we already know a favorite Asian of mine is really German. And Kitty is needed to save the day. (Somehow, I still can't imagine how they are going to pull that off while keeping her in character!) While S & S didn't realize their step-mom knows how to swear. And that A.C. Quire will seem to collect everyone imaginable without actually doing anything with them. (Ok, that last part wasn't entirely fair, he's only been collecting for 6 issues now...)

So the only thing you really need to do is finish this story line up and start a new one because I've been enjoying this one for a while and I'd like to see more.


I know... Between me, Trish and MC Tek, I'm working so that a lot of these stories pertaining to this one (Resort Tales & Teacher's Pet) all tie-in somehow (i.e. why is Kari's hair brown in Teacher's Pet <which is a story that happens BEFORE S & S...> and brown afterwards). And if it means that I have to tell both Trish and Tek to take a minute to play nice and help me out while I'm drawing this, so be it. And while I'm still taking this whole discussion pretty hard, I at least know what I've gotta do.

~Begs
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby nageth » August 6th, 2012, 10:58 pm

Knew this was going to create a discussion but wow. As far as what disappointed me just to get that out of the way it was that I mostly just wanted to see what happened to lead up to Resort and this was only a setup for that story. Since we're speaking of the SciFi genre, I wanted the abridged version of Best of Both Worlds Part 2 so I could understand why Riker is a Commander again and Picard is no longer a Borg (oh and why Shelby isn't a Borg...har har). So yeah, selfish want to understand the plot more than anything else (such as the artists' wants and needs when telling their story). As far as characters not acting appropriately, I approached it from a S&S and prior only frame of reference. For instance, Shield was just recently crying over her lost love (#5 just before the beacon went off). So I can see her jumping in (last time her love was in danger she pretty much ran in without thinking and was rewarded with being incapable of thinking). Only problem I had was with RM calling the object of her adolescent obsession stupid. Yeah, you can say that RM is the brash scientist who hurts people's feelings by being overly blunt (not to mention the whole mind control thing) but she never acted like that with respect to Fluffy before (other than lobotomizing her instead of turning her into a were-cat after wishing she wasn't there). This resulted in me breaking my rule and I thought about Resort. I think that was the thing that stuck for me and colored the whole issue in a poor light. But for all I know that could be the entire point and it is part of RM's growth. Anyway, just wanted to throw out my opinion (since I've stuck my nose/commentary in this particular story before). Hope everything works out okay because I do enjoy the work by everyone involved in this story/characters.

PS: As far as what I'd like to see with future stories (since it was brought up) is more of Sword and Shield because so far Sword just sort of disappeared. I thought the idea of having two characters pretty much completely reliant on each other was great (can understand the no naughty mindless stuff together limitation). It is what I like about Ms Metrobay and Omega Woman. They're effectively the same pair but the next generation (har har) more than Alpha Woman and Valient Grrl (since Alpha Woman is a closet bad guy in my opinion).
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby xarielx » August 7th, 2012, 5:16 am

After digesting this series, my first reaction was feeling a little let down after issue 7, were-kitty's aside, I had just read a sex scene in issue 6, I was looking for more plot, really I wanted to find out how "Ring Mistress" managed to learn all this science and managed to turn these heroines into animals actually, she comes off as a dunce in comparison to what her actions have told me so far. I think the creator of the characters holds sway in that case, from reading the whole series in one sitting, I can say the scenes in issue 6 where the flashback of Ring Mistress and Clarissa took place, including Ring Mistress guilt over bimbofying Clarissa is a stark contrast to her dialogue starting from page 7 of issue 7. An issue I saw from a series labeled "Sword and Shield" is that it focuses more on the Action Cats, Ring Mistress and Clarissa rather than the heroines Sword and Shield, they take second place to the sex and the ancillary characters I thought. Looking at it having a hiatus of 2 years with different artists, this issue should have been given a very close inspection by everyone involved before release, especially whoever has advanced the characters involved since.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby dumbtime » August 7th, 2012, 9:58 pm

Whew, I made it to the end of the word walls... I need a drink.

Well it looks like the simple little cartoon update either rocked the boat to hard or not enough.

Now that I have absorded all the posts, I'm going to take out my "read between the lines" magnifying galss and examine it closer.

Don't worry, I'll make sure its not in the sunlight.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby dumbtime » August 7th, 2012, 10:16 pm

Upon further review...

(I'm surprised Technophyle hasn't said something about this)

It looks like there are a lot of deeped seeded issues between artists and some readers that apparently are more interesting than the actual comic. This has excited the rest of us and we feel obliged to chime in <just like im doing now> and give our 2 cents about the issues and not really about the comic. The comic fits the original series, not the changed Terra/Ringmistress story idea of today. What should have happened was the original people finish the story back then, agree to finish it today or not say anything about today when someone else steps up and helps do the deed.

Also - sex, sex, sex is what is behind all the fetish of the current stories. We added MC, bondage, and other styles of fetsih to it. Its like a buffet, take what you want and leave what you don't. but don't complain if the pot roast on Sunday doesn't taste like it did on Friday - its a buffet!!

People try to do there best work here and criticism is needed for us to get better. Just be careful when you complain to the chef. Wink, wink and more winks

And to finish up my analysis, I'll say this... I was never a big fan of the story. The villian was too overpowered <worthy flame material - You can start a bonfire with that.>
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Northern Chill » August 7th, 2012, 10:28 pm

dumbtime wrote:Upon further review...

(I'm surprised Technophyle hasn't said something about this)

It looks like there are a lot of deeped seeded issues between artists and some readers that apparently are more interesting than the actual comic. This has excited the rest of us and we feel obliged to chime in <just like im doing now> and give our 2 cents about the issues and not really about the comic. The comic fits the original series, not the changed Terra/Ringmistress story idea of today. What should have happened was the original people finish the story back then, agree to finish it today or not say anything about today when someone else steps up and helps do the deed.

Also - sex, sex, sex is what is behind all the fetish of the current stories. We added MC, bondage, and other styles of fetsih to it. Its like a buffet, take what you want and leave what you don't. but don't complain if the pot roast on Sunday doesn't taste like it did on Friday - its a buffet!!

People try to do there best work here and criticism is needed for us to get better. Just be careful when you complain to the chef. Wink, wink and more winks

And to finish up my analysis, I'll say this... I was never a big fan of the story. The villian was too overpowered <worthy flame material - You can start a bonfire with that.>


There are those who look for a plot...silly silly bunch there, I know...

As to the concepts you set out about finishing, DT, interesting...wrong given the known circumstances but interesting pov about finishing.

As for the whole blowup over feedback here, I'll state something from personal experience: good or bad, its always good to get feedback cause it shows people give a damn about the story. Posting to the equiv of crickets in response is a lot more draining than any negative feedback that has some merit.
Check out past covers from stories found here as well as text stories I've written at http://nchill.deviantart.com

"What does this story need?...more Franbot!!!"
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Tecknophyle » August 7th, 2012, 11:34 pm

dumbtime wrote:Upon further review...

(I'm surprised Technophyle hasn't said something about this)



Who, me? Whysoever would people think I had an opinion about this?

...yeah, I can't believe I said that either.

There's two issues, really, that people have touched on. One is characterization of Terra Creed. The second is plot (or lack thereof). The second is easily dismissed: there are a lot...and I mean a lot of stories on this site, Hipcomix, or wherever, where the action stops dead for a purely gratuitous sex scene. So getting distressed about it in one particular case, enh, whatever. If there hadn't been the extensive delay between the last issue and this one, I doubt people would have even noticed.

The characterization issue, that really needs some context here, and that long gap comes into it in a big way. Other people have mentioned it: this was the first appearance of Sword, Shield, and Ring Mistress, and at the time it started their characterization, for lack of a better term, hadn't yet solidified. During the hiatus we had stories that expanded upon them (well, Shield and Creed anyway); they evolved. So going back to the original story and characterization can make it feel off, even if the characterization hasn't changed from the start of the story. Creed is, in this story and for lack of a better term, childish. Immature. That isn't the much more confidant and mature woman you see later in The Resort Tales, but that's okay because that story does happen some time later, and you have a different writer bringing a different take.

Again, had that hiatus not happened, I doubt there'd be many people who would have noticed a problem because they would likely have seen the exact same thing happen with other characters. Just off the top of my head, there's Alpha Woman who's strongly hinted (if not outright stated) to be bisexual in Body Image (Trishbot) and the Platinum Earth crossover (Sir Willoughby), but not really hinted as being so by Dr Robo or other writers. Max Indeks has a characterization all over the freaking map: complete idiot in some stories, competent in others, and in at least one introspective and emotionally more mature, all of it driven by the various writers. So again, I don't see that much of a problem.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Tecknophyle » August 7th, 2012, 11:50 pm

Northern Chill wrote:
dumbtime wrote:As for the whole blowup over feedback here, I'll state something from personal experience: good or bad, its always good to get feedback cause it shows people give a damn about the story. Posting to the equiv of crickets in response is a lot more draining than any negative feedback that has some merit.


*grump*

Tell me about it .

*grump*
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Uzobono » August 8th, 2012, 12:47 am

Tecknophyle wrote:*snip*

Again, had that hiatus not happened, I doubt there'd be many people who would have noticed a problem because they would likely have seen the exact same thing happen with other characters. Just off the top of my head, there's Alpha Woman who's strongly hinted (if not outright stated) to be bisexual in Body Image (Trishbot) and the Platinum Earth crossover (Sir Willoughby), but not really hinted as being so by Dr Robo or other writers. Max Indeks has a characterization all over the freaking map: complete idiot in some stories, competent in others, and in at least one introspective and emotionally more mature, all of it driven by the various writers. So again, I don't see that much of a problem.


I respectfully disagree with that Techno, only because I think the original writer or *really* creator of the characters should hold sway in those cases. While characters do change from writer to writer, inserting their own quirks and takes on how they would act and react to the plot, interact with other characters, I think there's a line there that isn't respected a lot of times.

There *is* a right way a character should act and a wrong way. For example, with Max, he can't be a moron *and* a devious criminal mastermind who thinks wistfully about his and others' actions, with APEX and his empire, his character rightly *is* a devious mastermind. For Alpha Woman, I don't believe Doc has ever said she's anything but lesbian, so (just my opinion :p) it's the *wrong* way to write her as being attracted to men for example.

So personally, you can't cross that line of treating someone else's character as your own, or writing dialogue, how they would act/react like the way *you'd* see it and just dismiss what the creator either says at the current time or has set up.

For Terra's characterization, only a few months pass between the end of S&S to Resort, and in the first six issues she didn't sound so...*ditzy* to me, though she was always immature throughout. Even so, even if you have a completely new writing team (of course Trish and McTek were for the originals), whoever created Terra as the character has final word on what she would say and act like no matter what because it's paramount that she be respected as a character.

So for me a hiatus, different artist, writing as how it would be written years ago, and other writers' takes on different characters are way secondary points to respecting the creator's vision. From there, there's tons of middle ground, and it seems like Ring Mistress was lost a bit in this timeframe, where she went from a lovestruck genius playful mistress, to a childish bimbo who casually insults the love of her life because of what *she* did to her.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Tecknophyle » August 8th, 2012, 9:01 am

Uzobono wrote:
Tecknophyle wrote:*snip*
For Alpha Woman, I don't believe Doc has ever said she's anything but lesbian, so (just my opinion :p) it's the *wrong* way to write her as being attracted to men for example.


But there's also nothing there to indicate she isn't, and that's largely because there haven't been many men on the good side of the ledger we've seen her interact with (since there are so few anyway) to say otherwise. The only Y Chromosome she's been shown in the presence of moderately regularly is the (reformed) Ted Twiss, and there are obvious reasons why she'd have some personal issues with him.

While I respect the fact that the creator of a character has certain views on what they want the character to be like, and those views should be respected, in the end when you allow someone else to use the character there will be changes. Things that perhaps you, as a creator, possibly never thought about. Given the stories she was in I suspect that--to use the same example--Alpha Woman's possible bisexuality simply wasn't an issue. Never came up. I don't know if the original writers even thought about it. And so someone made a reference to her flirting with a specific male character, which in no way changes anything else about her character and doesn't conflict with anything else.

But then even the dialogue inflicts changes. For instance there's is absolutely no way I could write the "Fiend! Release my friends at once!" style dialogue without being sarcastic about it. Not a chance in hell. So if I were writing a character that another writer had using that style of speaking, my version would sound completely different, which could lead the reader to complain about characterization differences. Similarly, there might be aspects about the character that are canon, but which really don't get looked at too closely by other writers but which I do find interesting and might explore.

I'll give you a concrete example of what I mean to demonstrate. I just uploaded a...call it a "pilot" issue, of a proposed Metrobay story to my free gallery here (http://www.mccomix.com/gallery2/main.ph ... emId=52924). It's something I did last year, that for various reasons never went further, but it shows what I mean. The Ms Metrobay seen there is a pretty far cry from many of her portrayals in existing stories, even ignoring the purely cosmetic examples of what she looks like, but there's nothing (except the glowy eyes: by now it's pretty clear I like the glowy eye thing) that's against canon: her powers work as previously described and shown, and her physical abilities aren't out of line for someone who should have both superhuman endurance (thanks to said aforementioned powers) and decades of practice and training. I even intentionally placed it within the timeline so that it wouldn't conflict with her later brainwashing by LISA, and it would have helped explain why she warmed up to Ted Twiss apparently so easily despite what a mess he was responsible for.

The main things that makes it different are dialogue (external and internal) and that I didn't have her as the victim she typically ends up as fairly quickly. I focused in this little snippet instead on the fact she's a superhero. (The whole erotic bits would have come in not to long after this: it would have been robo-fantastic, the way I had it written let me tell you. Cyborgs and drones and alternate realities and so on. And appearances by about ten different versions of Kelly West.)

Now, my version isn't better (whatever that means) but the role I had planned for her would have been different from her standard place in stories, and so I had to focus on different things.

Pretty much the only way for this not to happen is to either not allow someone else to write a character, or to lock down the character to a very hard set of guidelines and not allow any deviation from them. The latter can work (see, for instance, characters like Archie, Betty and Veronica who haven't changed in decades) but you need firm editorial control to do it. The other option is to simply declare the work non-canon: all the Kirk/Spock slashfic in the world isn't going to change the fact that James Kirk is officially pretty much straight heterosexual.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby NoneNeeded » August 11th, 2012, 6:31 am

This seems to have shifted into a public discussion of mccomix internal deliberations. As an outsider, I would suggest that there might be less rancor if those aspects were taken private. I imagine that sharing a 'world' will force everyone to compromise more than they might like(it seems that way in the physical one I live in anyway). Internal criticism from peers can be hard to handle. Doing it in front of the world can make it more painful than needed. Focusing on the good parts makes the others sting less. At least that is what I try to think when I am being savaged in a code review at work. Also remember that some of this is persoal opinion, not hard fact.

That out of the way(and again as an outsider with no skin in the game), I think what is being argued about are the details. Almost all of the feed back seemed primarily positive or at least constructive. Some of the things that seemed obvious to the author/artists didn't seem so to some of us. The art was good and fun but some things might be better.

My personal view as one of your customers( as in "listen to me I pay the bills") was that the story was lots of fun but a little off. Honestly, aft such a long gap and a crew change, that is no surprise to me. It wasn't just the characters that grew in the background stories, the people writing/drawing it were not the same as the ones before. Lesson to be learner: don't wait so long next time!

I can't speak for others but I post about these not to complain. I can do that more effectively by canceling my sub. I haven't seen anything in this that would move me that way. I comment to let you folks know what I specifically like and don't like about the stories so that you can continue to do the very good job you have done overall but MAYBE end up with something that is a little better for this audience if one.

Now some actual comments.

I enjoyed the 'loud' artwork a lot. I am no artist but I think including more background art as was suggested by another would have made the panels seems busy and crowded. I am sure there is some chicken/egg thing at work there, if there were backgrounds, the colors would have been chosen differently. But at least in this issue, I thought it was a very lively and exciting visual. I will hold off on saying what I would think if I was seeing it all the time. The volume might get to be too much.

On the characters and story:

After that long wait, I guess I wanted more to happen. I thought I read that it would be one wrap up issue and missed the one about there being two. That probably affected my impression in that I thought little happened. I am also a bit slow sometimes so the foreshadowing that others saw went right past me. I also had trouble reconciling characters as they were two years ago with what they had become in the stories that had developed later. But real people are not always consistent either so it was only a minor distraction.

As for the sex, I know that is part of the goal but I prefer erotica over porn and this did seem to tip over to the porn side. I am sure others will have a different opinion and diffent tastes. I only speak for myself when I say I would have preferred things less in your face. Also, I like some sort of mc tie-in for it. The werekittens I thought made sense to have involved since they had minds and needs still and the reward would make them more loyal to the owner. The robogirls didn't seem to have a reason. RM wasn't even watching to revel in her control, was she? If there was some 'obedience is pleasure' vib, I missed it. As an aside, I know it wouldn't have fit in well here because of pacing, but I think the idea of the werekittens starting out more feral and being trained to be both bodyguards and playmates more like training a pet would be hot. I can imagine RM with a clicker and treats(both a box of chocolates and a robo between the kittens legs) running a pretty pink pussy through agility course. Followed by a second 'agility, course in bed with similar props.

Like I said, I like the issue. I just wanted to let you know what might have made it better for one reader. I mean, even if you changed everything to fix every little criticism I made, I am not sure how I would like it until I saw the result. And there is no telling what your many readers who remained silent would feel then. I just selfishly wanted to get more of my buttons being pressed.

Keep up the good work while moving onto greater works.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby NoneNeeded » September 10th, 2012, 3:08 pm

I hope the kerfuffle at the start of last month hasn't put the kibosh on that final issue you guys mentioned. Any hint of a release date?

I, for one, am really looking forward to it.
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Re: New Free Comic! "Sword & Shield"

Postby Trishbot » September 10th, 2012, 7:14 pm

NoneNeeded wrote:I hope the kerfuffle at the start of last month hasn't put the kibosh on that final issue you guys mentioned. Any hint of a release date?

I, for one, am really looking forward to it.


Well, the outline we're using has been finished since last year. ;) So that's not going to change. You'll have to direct all progress requests to Begbie, since everything's depending on his art, and I can tackle it as soon as I get it. (no pressure, Begbie!)
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