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matt_zimmerWeekly talkback for Gilda And Meek And The Un-Iverse! Read an issue and discuss it here!
My weekly article below.
THE COMPLAINER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
During the 1980's, kids cartoons were made by committee between admen selling toys, and mushy child psychologists hoping to spread positive messages to moms while selling crap to their kids. And one of the most misbegotten tropes during this era of animated dreck was "The Complainer Is Always Wrong." Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Brainy Smurf. The producers of The Smurfs tried to get me to think of Brainy as a big time Authoritarian who follows Papa Smurf's "rules" without question, beyond all reason, and often to the Smurfs' detriment, while completely misrepresenting the intentions behind the rules in the first place. And there IS a little fascism to Brainy's character. I won't deny that. Do you know what else there is? Independence. The willingness to stand up to the other Smurfs while they are all calling him an idiot for not falling in line with whatever 80's treacly moralizing plan they were spewing at him. The fact that Brainy is an idiot is a crying shame. Because standing up for what you believe in, even when it is unpopular, is an admirable quality to have. The TV psychologists who were writing these shows thought they were stressing the value of teamwork and getting along as a group. What they are really doing is stressing conformity and letting other people doing your thinking for you. Making sure little kids grow up into compliant little worker drones ready to be fed into the machine. That is why Brainy Smurf can NEVER be shown to be right, and he always has to be put in his place, and learn a valuable lesson about how bad it is to think for yourself.
Bernadette is the complainer in The Un-Iverse. And she is always right. Every single complaint she levels against one of Gilda's excellent plans is 100% accurate. And freak it! Sometimes Gilda realizes that and takes her advice! She doesn't always need to. Gilda's plan will just as often work better than Bernadette's plan would have. But Bernadette's reservations and complaints are always, ALWAYS legit. It is how she and Gilda brainstorm. And all of the rest of the group is allowed to offer their different perspectives, and sometimes they choose Gilda's plan, and sometimes Bernadette's plan. Or come up with a different one themselves! But they don't choose Gilda's plan because Bernadette is wrong. Because she never is. She keeps everybody honest, which is what Brainy Smurf should have been doing with halfway decent writers, and not a bunch of lousy child psychologists working from casebooks that have been discredited forty years ago. She's a free thinker and that is something to be admired. The Complainer Is Always Right.
The Archive on BlogSpot
https://gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/2020/02/welcome-to-gilda-and-meek-and-un-iverse.html
Latest Issue:
10. F.I.S.H. "Deep Space Swine" (Un-Iverse #66)
https://gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/2024/05/10-fish-deep-space-swine-un-iverse-66.html
My weekly article below.
THE COMPLAINER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
During the 1980's, kids cartoons were made by committee between admen selling toys, and mushy child psychologists hoping to spread positive messages to moms while selling crap to their kids. And one of the most misbegotten tropes during this era of animated dreck was "The Complainer Is Always Wrong." Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Brainy Smurf. The producers of The Smurfs tried to get me to think of Brainy as a big time Authoritarian who follows Papa Smurf's "rules" without question, beyond all reason, and often to the Smurfs' detriment, while completely misrepresenting the intentions behind the rules in the first place. And there IS a little fascism to Brainy's character. I won't deny that. Do you know what else there is? Independence. The willingness to stand up to the other Smurfs while they are all calling him an idiot for not falling in line with whatever 80's treacly moralizing plan they were spewing at him. The fact that Brainy is an idiot is a crying shame. Because standing up for what you believe in, even when it is unpopular, is an admirable quality to have. The TV psychologists who were writing these shows thought they were stressing the value of teamwork and getting along as a group. What they are really doing is stressing conformity and letting other people doing your thinking for you. Making sure little kids grow up into compliant little worker drones ready to be fed into the machine. That is why Brainy Smurf can NEVER be shown to be right, and he always has to be put in his place, and learn a valuable lesson about how bad it is to think for yourself.
Bernadette is the complainer in The Un-Iverse. And she is always right. Every single complaint she levels against one of Gilda's excellent plans is 100% accurate. And freak it! Sometimes Gilda realizes that and takes her advice! She doesn't always need to. Gilda's plan will just as often work better than Bernadette's plan would have. But Bernadette's reservations and complaints are always, ALWAYS legit. It is how she and Gilda brainstorm. And all of the rest of the group is allowed to offer their different perspectives, and sometimes they choose Gilda's plan, and sometimes Bernadette's plan. Or come up with a different one themselves! But they don't choose Gilda's plan because Bernadette is wrong. Because she never is. She keeps everybody honest, which is what Brainy Smurf should have been doing with halfway decent writers, and not a bunch of lousy child psychologists working from casebooks that have been discredited forty years ago. She's a free thinker and that is something to be admired. The Complainer Is Always Right.
The Archive on BlogSpot
https://gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/2020/02/welcome-to-gilda-and-meek-and-un-iverse.html
Latest Issue:
10. F.I.S.H. "Deep Space Swine" (Un-Iverse #66)
https://gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/2024/05/10-fish-deep-space-swine-un-iverse-66.html
no subject
Date: 2024-05-31 09:58 pm (UTC)I get what you mean about Hank working at the aquarium seeming coincidental. And while it sort of is, it was originally designed that Hank was like Donald Duck, and had more random jobs around Appleton than anybody else. We later see him as a museum security guard but I don't feel like I successfully got across that aspect of the character. Although Bernadette DOES note in this issue that he has taken a lot of random jobs.
On the other hand a LOT of the coincidences in The Un-Iverse are down to Universal Design and the Universe putting its thumb on the scale for Gilda. That's not necessarily what's happening with Gilda and Hank. But it COULD be.
Oh God, the stray quotation mark after Bernadette's line! The early issues were PLAGUED with that shit as well as the page numbering always being utterly fucked up. I didn't used to proof-read the comic as often as I do now. I also spell-check and that helps too.
I feel the fight scene is decent too, which is good because that has always been my weak spot and it's nice that I can fake "decent" in the second flipping issue. It lacks a lot of tension compared to later action sequences, but it's boarded all right, and you can still tell what is happening.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-31 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-31 10:37 pm (UTC)One of the interesting things I do in my (rare) fight scenes is I usually put in one unique sound effect per panel. Sometimes the effect comes across as humorous. That is definitely true for this scene.