My VALIANT (all capitals, all the time and all that) story

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:31 am

cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote:
leonmallett wrote: Truly thou art Chiclo, mighty slayer of jokes (no matter how good or bad they be...)
It become his sworn duty.
More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?

Chiclo · Post by **Chiclo** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:18 pm

cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote:
leonmallett wrote: Truly thou art Chiclo, mighty slayer of jokes (no matter how good or bad they be...)
It become his sworn duty.
More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?

Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.

X-O HoboJoe · Post by **X-O HoboJoe** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:26 pm

Chiclo wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote: It become his sworn duty.
More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?
Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.

Oh, they get it. They just don't want it.

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:33 pm

Chiclo wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote: It become his sworn duty.
More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?
Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.

Truly the master...

Elveen · Post by **Elveen** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:17 pm

Chiclo wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote: It's become his sworn duty.
More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?
Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.

I like the esoteric and abstruse as much as the next guy, but when it is circuitous and circumlocutory, I don't know...... I kinda lose intrest.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:52 pm

Elveen wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote: More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?
Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.
I like the esoteric and abstruse as much as the next guy, but when it is circuitous and circumlocutory, I don't know...... I kinda lose intrest.

Now I have a headache......

cobra_commander · Post by **cobra_commander** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:21 pm

Daniel Jackson wrote:
Elveen wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote: But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?
Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.
I like the esoteric and abstruse as much as the next guy, but when it is circuitous and circumlocutory, I don't know...... I kinda lose intrest.
Now I have a headache......

Tell me about it..I thought an abstruse was a bird!

cobra_commander · Post by **cobra_commander** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:23 pm

Chiclo wrote:Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly.

Yeah, I'd have to say this one's my favourite

slym2none · Post by **slym2none** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:39 am

Chiclo's mission: to confuse, inveigle, and obfuscate.

-slym

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:34 am

Mission accomplished.

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:41 am

You know, I might just try to steer this thread back on track soon...

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:49 am

Eh, it's officially a trainwreck now......

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:39 am

Daniel Jackson wrote:Eh, it's officially a trainwreck now......

How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:02 am

leonmallett wrote:How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...

471

/Magnus

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:09 am

magnusr wrote:
leonmallett wrote:How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...
471

/Magnus

As long as you have personally counted them all, I'll take your words for it...

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:37 pm

leonmallett wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote:Eh, it's officially a trainwreck now......
How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...

Hmm...

slym2none · Post by **slym2none** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:16 pm

leonmallett wrote:
magnusr wrote:
leonmallett wrote:How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...
471

/Magnus
As long as you have personally counted them all, I'll take your words for it...

I guess you'll have to take his word that he counted them all, eh?

-slym

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:39 am

Daniel Jackson wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote:Eh, it's officially a trainwreck now......
How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...
Hmm...

A-ha!

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:39 am

slym2none wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
magnusr wrote:
leonmallett wrote:How many threads that get past 1 or 2 pages around here aren't trainwrecks...
471

/Magnus
As long as you have personally counted them all, I'll take your words for it...
I guess you'll have to take his word that he counted them all, eh?

-slym

I am generally trusting sort of fellow, so I will!

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:54 am

Continuing my occasional posts about reading VALIANT, since they are pretty 'fresh' to me only having hopped on board in the last 18 months or thereabouts. This despite Daniel Jackson's view that this thread has offically attained train-wreck status!

I have been re-reading and reading for the first time a lot of Bloodshot in the last few days, as well as Timewalker before that (not finished and comments to follow when I am), but until I have read the full VH1 run (I guess I am still as many as 13 books short but working on it) I won't post my comments. Whilst digging through and reading I came across my copies of The Outcast and The Destroyer one-shots, so I thought I post a few...thoughts.

The Outcast: I knew nothing going in to this one, but the cover screamed alien on Earth to me. Drawn by Breyfogle I knew that I would have misgivings. Not that I don't like his work, far from it. However after the Don Perlin run on Bloodshot, as well as the initial Sean Chen work there, I felt his work was too much unlike what I expect with a VALIANT book. It was too super-hero-ey. The storytelling changed dramatically in bloodshot with fewer panels per page and a more cartoon-y style. Not a change for the better. At the same time I could feel a slight shift in Van Hook's 'voice' as a writer, but that is for the future Bloodshot post.
On to the Outcast - I had preconceptions based on Breyfogle and nothing else. which is funny because that is what I came away thinking - that this was about Breyfogle and nothing else. The origins of VALIANT character's powers was added to in a wholly new way, rather than fitting with established pseudo (not 'hard', mind) science explanations. The strory didn't really go anywhere and could have fit in any comic book universe featuring aliens. It didn't do a great deal for me. Another issue ticked off and it will stay in the collection for completeness. It just didn't fele like a VALIANT book. Which is not snobbery - DC books have a feel, Marvel books have a feel and so on. All of which is okay, and I can enjoy them for that. It is when they try to emulate what other puvblishers are doing that they come unstuck. That is what the Outcast felt like.

Destroyer: Whilst this felt and looked much more like traditional VALIANT, that felt in turn like it was set in the (future) VALIANT universe I was left underwhelmed by the story. Now I know that wasn't due to the writing, since I enjoyed Van Hook's Bloodshot a lot (particularly the first 25 issues or so) but the whol thing felt rushed and over-compressed. A flaw to my mind in some of VALIANT's storytelling (and I accept won't be seen as a flaw by all) is that often the stories are so compressed that stuff happens 'off-camera' that isn't spelt out. thus the story appears to make a jump at times as though there is something missing. For others this may not be a problem, but to me, well I find it a little jarring at times. The upshot of reading this story was I was left feeling that there was probably 2 or 3 issues of story here that had been cut to fit it's one-shot format and so really didn't achieve what it could have. Another tick toward reading evrything anyway.

Next up is finishing reading Timewalker, and then focusing which of the big runs to finish collecting to allow me to read them, having already dipped my toe into Bloodshot, Solar and Harbinger.

siren3-4 · Post by **siren3-4** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:11 am

X-O HoboJoe wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
leonmallett wrote:
cobra_commander wrote:
cobra_commander wrote: More like 'natural posting style'
But hey anyone can kill a joke. Chiclo doesn't get enough credit for the way he kills a joke. Bullet to the head - BLAM! No messing about.
No double-tap?
I guess if it was a really good joke he might. Chiclo? What various strategies do you use to kill off different styles of jokes?
Well, I use 2 the most often. Probably the more frequently of the two would be failing to recognize rhetorical questions. People pose questions, and those questions are intended to be funny, but I answer them thoroughly. The other strategy I employ most often is to try to add to the joke, take it a step further, but usually I make too oblique or arcane a reference and nobody gets it.
Oh, they get it. They just don't want it.

like herpes . . .

slym2none · Post by **slym2none** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:57 am

siren3-4 wrote:
X-O HoboJoe wrote:
Oh, they get it. They just don't want it.
like herpes . . .

Hmm... who would be the 'herpes' of this message board? By that I mean, who is it that no-one wants around, yet they always seem to come back, sometimes at the most in-opportune time?

-slym (it's a rhetorical question, folks)

siren3-4 · Post by **siren3-4** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:53 am

slym2none wrote:
siren3-4 wrote:
X-O HoboJoe wrote:
Oh, they get it. They just don't want it.
like herpes . . .
Hmm... who would be the 'herpes' of this message board? By that I mean, who is it that no-one wants around, yet they always seem to come back, sometimes at the most in-opportune time?

-slym (it's a rhetorical question, folks)

. . uh oh . . . Space Herpe . . .

Rufusharley · Post by **Rufusharley** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:21 am

siren3-4 wrote:
slym2none wrote:
siren3-4 wrote:
X-O HoboJoe wrote:
Oh, they get it. They just don't want it.
like herpes . . .
Hmm... who would be the 'herpes' of this message board? By that I mean, who is it that no-one wants around, yet they always seem to come back, sometimes at the most in-opportune time?

-slym (it's a rhetorical question, folks)

. . uh oh . . . Space Herpe . . .

U sure that's not a hemorrhoid?

Chiclo · Post by **Chiclo** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:00 pm

Rufusharley wrote:
siren3-4 wrote:
slym2none wrote:
siren3-4 wrote:
X-O HoboJoe wrote:
Oh, they get it. They just don't want it.
like herpes . . .
Hmm... who would be the 'herpes' of this message board? By that I mean, who is it that no-one wants around, yet they always seem to come back, sometimes at the most in-opportune time?

-slym (it's a rhetorical question, folks)

. . uh oh . . . Space Herpe . . .

U sure that's not a hemorrhoid?

Well, it's not a tumor.