Here, let me bitch about something irrelevant One of the problems with being a writer who enjoys one specific element of your writing is that you will routinely wind up returning to that same point. This has been highlighted to me by Jeph Jacques of
Questionable Content. Given how I was willing to bitch out the authors of
Death Note for terrible character voice and how their multi-million dollar, multi-platform success that has inspired books, games, video serials and
at least one honest-to-god murder, surely I'll have a round to fire into the hipster T-shirt sales platform that is QC, right?
Well, yeah, kinda, but it's so trivial as to make me wonder why the fuck it bothers me. I don't read the comic regularly, and I
won't read the comic regularly and I overall, he does some good things by having continuity, outfits change over time, and by not
constantly returning to the same
plot point (though I do think the progression of the story is very slow and the character development is glacial; one day in the comic takes weeks of time in reality, which means that if you're following the updates, any long conversation takes weeks of stuff you may not give a shit about, because this series compensates for weakness in characters with strengths in other characters). So what is it that's pissing me off?
It's Sven's hair.
Sven, when he showed up, was really visually distinct. Glasses in a particular shape, and unlike every other male in the series, he had long hair. This was not a huge deal; I just liked how it looked and it made him seem different from the other, more hipster-indie style characters in the series. The main male you see is basically Marten, whose hair goes through very little variation and is almost the definition of an anime-style 'generic spiky.' Sven stood out from Marten through a visual device that's simple, but then, QC's art isn't very complex (not that it doesn't have its moments). Steve, Marten's friend, has a similar device, expressed through massive sideburns.
Anyway, as Sven became more prominent in the story throughout 2007, one day, bam, short hair. Short, generic hair that fell in a short, generic pattern. What makes this more annoying is that this meant he was visually almost
identical to one of the other bit-part characters that preceeded him, Angus the abuse addict. To make things worse, Sven and Angus are both in competition for the same girl, and a story arc in early 2008 legitimized Angus. So two visually indistinct characters, one of whom has an established personality and character voice (which honestly, kinda derails as the story advances), the other of whom is a bit character who resurfaces in time to be competition for the other. This is not in my opinion, very good.
I suppose Sven's hair is a metaphor for Sven himself. When he had the hair long, there was a certain charming honesty about him; he was a man-slut who was completely okay with his identity in that regard. As the comic advanced, he became a much more generic message of 'see the evils of low-commitment wild sex,' which in turn feels rather hypocritical when those same instances of low-commitment wild sex are demonstrated to the audience in a fairly titillating way. It's especially obnoxious when he turns into a mopey sort with what basically amounts to a Female Conscience hovering over his shoulder, or when a group of grown adults think it's okay to physically assault or threaten physical assault on a guy because he has different sexual mores.
It makes me worry about my own writing. Is sex just that loaded a topic that a generic story about very sexy people gettin' it awn and gettin' it awf just happens to automatically bring with it behaviour that people see as acceptable, or necessary? Bah. I am annoyed and my only avenue for expressing it is this.
Also, I have an appointment in seven and a half hours, but I'm not tired. I am uncertain as to if the solution is to stay up and go wired and tired, or to score a few hours of sleep and go in feeling half-dead. Hrmmm.