MacroLass wrote:I admit that a good deal of this is because I'm irked because Sword and Shield hasn't been finished. I realize that it was a free story but that doesn't excuse stampeding past it just because it was inconvenient to wait for it to be done. But the fact you felt free to do that illustrates a larger problem in that your stories have no consequences for the villains (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say the story is still out on the heroes). Obviously Ringmistress wasn't impeded by being thwarted (if indeed she was) at the end of S&S because she was still merrily cranking away with her nanotech in Resort Tales, so why should we care about anything that happens after? It'll just be ignored if it becomes inconvenient again.
While I agree that I, too, would like Sword & Shield finished (like, a YEAR ago) and it's unbelievably upsetting that it got postponed on its LAST issue (NOBODY likes a cliffhanger that exists for no reason), Tek's hardly the only person to jump around with the timeline and show villains in action again before the prior story had finished. While I don't encourage it, I myself have done this, and for good reasons.
"Body Image", for example, has Valient Grrl running around freely before her brainwashing by Belinda. Obviously, we know she's going to escape. We know she's even still with Alpha Woman when the later story hits. So why read it? Because it plants the seeds for other ideas and future stories. I know Trishbot is working hard on a future Valient Grrl story that will be mind-blowing, and the events of "Hypnotica" and "Body Image" were just the lead-ins. For things to change in the future, they have to have precedent in the past.
MacroLass wrote:Which leads me to my next point that the villains and their devices are infallible. The heroines obviously have many foibles but the bad guys are perfect. Honeydoll being an absolute and PERFECT duplicate of the original, utterly undetectable by anyone, is only the most egregious example (and you aren't the only author I have this problem with). I get the fact that the heroines are supposed to be put in bad situations for tittilation but the fact that their skills and powers are for naught and only sheer luck helps them escape to fight another day just grates on me.
Now this I'll agree with. A rule of thumb when creating a heroine or a villain is you create them with both great power AND great flaws and weaknesses to exploit. "Invincible" heroes and villains are boring and uninteresting, and that's one of the big things that I dislike about Ring Mistress. She's practically a walking deus ex machina; whatever she does is practically magic. I find it frustrating that Doc, Fin, Trishbot, and Uroboros spent years creating a universe where humanoid robots exist, but the technology is still decades away from making them convincingly human. LISA, Mechana, Cyren, and Sentius are proof of this. And then Ring Mistress creates a perfect human replica on her first try that's so good, even Alpha Woman, a telepath that can read minds, can't figure out the truth. Even when a heroine like Enormica probes fake Honeydoll's naked body all over, she can't figure it out. We just jumped forward decades of advancement. The only way I could possibly accept or explain it is if Ring Mistress is a time traveler from the future.
But, as MacroLass states, all the villains are just cocky, unbeatable opponents. Part of the reason I enjoy comics and reading comics, even fetish ones with mind control themes, is the thrill of the hunt and the challenges both heroes AND villains must overcome. It's just not fun to see one single woman outclass, outmatch, and outsmart every last single heroine that comes her way (that goes for both Irene and Ring Mistress). It doesn't matter if it's Duality Dame (best fighter on earth), Kat Krusader, Valient Grrl, Notre Dame, HoneyDoll, Alpha Woman, Snowflake... etc. I agree... it's just, to me, not a good read if the heroines "luck" into victory all the time (and I don't mean to pick on you, specifically, Tek. Doc, Trishbot, Fin, and even myself are guilty of this).
mctek wrote:MarcoLass - thanks, for the feedback, as I stated before, I'll taken in all kind of feedback, we don't grow without both the good and the bad. As for the current story, we are only into the second issue, and there is more to come. The nature of the stories here at MCcomix are mostly in the favor of the villian and while the heroines do need to win, I think the stories we write are the ones where they've utterly defeated and taken control of. Heroines have won in the past and I have shown that happening before and will so later on.
I don't think MacroLass's issue is that the heroines "win", it's rather HOW they win. I know I complained that Ms. Metrobay has not legitimately defeated a single badguy since her debut, and that's a black mark on her record, and I can't recall a single story you've done where the heroine wins without tons of luck. Snowflake "lucked" her way into breaking free of Ring Mistress's control. Shield "lucked" her way into defeating Greg Northern.
For me, personally, a villain can't just win. That's boring. The balance of power must shift on occasion. Villains need to show humanity, weakness, and make mistakes that are readily apparent. A villain like Belinda is almost exactly like Ring Mistress, but she's far more nuanced. You understand why she makes the decisions she makes. You know why she fails or succeeds. You see her flaws stand out a mile away. Same goes for Dr. Twisted, Max Indeks, Sentius, and others. Irene is a BIG step in the right direction, starting OFF as a dishonored villain. That's very refreshing. But she should struggle far more than she has if she's seriously going to capture superheroines and she's only a rookie villain. I'd be disappointed if she just snatched up Omega Woman or Valient Grrl with less effort than it takes to make a ham sandwich.
mctek wrote:Sword and Shield
Alright I think I had enough now.
I will not get stabbed in the head, tossed under the bus or shot in the face for a very private PERSONAL reason for switching to poser art and thus affecting Sword and Shield. My personal life is not for display and shouldn't have to get involved with the things that happen here. And I did offer to finish this story in Poser to which Trish has declined to take me up on. I will not be hold at gunpoint for something that is out of my hands.
This is an iffy topic, one I don't wish to dive into (I already have), but I will say this: take responsibility for your actions. Even if it has negative consequences for your writer and your audience, it was YOUR decision, and if you must stick to it, than accept the burden of the backlash. Something like this isn't beyond your control unless your hands got hacked off; it's a personal reason; I get that, but that was still your decision to make.
But your readers and fans don't know that. You kept us all in the dark and we can only speculate. Did you just lose interest? Did you have a falling out with the writer? Did you disagree on the direction the story was heading? Was the workload too heavy? Did the offer for a paid slot change your priorities? Did you feel the story was unimportant? Did someone else accuse you of ripping off their characters? Was their a contradiction in the timeline that needed to be worked out? Did someone else say you can't use their characters (certainly wasn't me...)?
And here's the deal: People are upset and disappointed because we DO care about "Sword & Shield" and we DO want the story to be completed. I'm a HUGE fan of the comic and I embraced the hand-drawn art completely. I agree with Trishbot; it's a 2D comic; that's it's heart and soul and I would rather wait longer to have it finished so long as it stayed hand-drawn. I would not want the comic to be done in poser; it being hand-drawn is half the reason I read it.
So consider that the merits of your success on that story, and on these other stories. We may complain sometimes, but we do so because we do care what happens in these stories. You've captured our interest, and we all want these stories to be the best they can be. We want to see them through to completion, we want the villains to emerge as more complex, interesting people, we want the heroines to do more than be mindless body counts. And you've become a thousand-fold better at this since you began, so I have no worries you'll emerge from this stories a much stronger writer, artist, and creator. But the road to that path is rocky, and until then, I and others patiently wait for the wrinkles to be ironed out, the loose ends to be tied up, and the weight of unresolved stories to be cast off so we can all move on instead of being told to move on before we're ready.