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Evil Geniuses In A Nutshell
What's to Like? When he's on, he's really on. Some of the strips in here are laugh-out-loud funny. Even when it's merely amusing, Illiad captures elements of the real world in their twisted glories. Who can't put real names to half of the personalities running around in his little experiment?
There's Mike, a network engineer, forced to choose a server OS based on mascot issues. AJ, the designer, is torn between his feelings for Miranda and his inability to relate to anything organic -- when he's not debating a caffeine-induced hallucination. Greg, head of tech support, can't believe his customers questions. Pitr, coder extraodinaire, eagerly awaits his recognition as an Evil Genius. Stef, marketing weenie, is haunted by his poor Quake performance and his inability to make any progress with Miranda. Miranda, equal parts geek and goddess, finds herself the equal of the male techs, but cannot quite understand their unique brand of communication. On the far side of reality are the Dust Puppy (an intelligent, innocent, and adorable ball of that stuff you ought to clean out of your server -- but with feet) and Erwin, an AI who's switched bodies more than Cher.
On his best days, Illiad reads like a combination of Doonesbury and Bloom County, with the requisite Open Source flavor. Linux usually comes out ahead and Microsoft way behind, though occasionally the situation's reversed. (Insert photo of Alan Cox reeling from sunlight after the MS Terminator steals his sunglasses). That's not to say that sacred penguins don't make good hamburger. (Once the boss approves migrating the servers to Linux, what do you do? Answer -- Nerf Gun duels to determine whose pet distribution is best.)
What's to Consider? As UFies know, Illiad's Sunday comics are often topical. Remember eBay's spate of availability problems? ESR at Microsoft last summer? If so, you'll catch on pretty quickly. If not, you'll just have to scratch your head and keep reading. (There's also one comic missing the last panel on the top of page 18. If you're reading this, though, you'll find the proper punchline here.) For the purists, note that some strips appear in topic-related sections, not chronological order. That serves to bring out more of the subtle humor, in my opinion.
Also, Illiad's song parodies provoke mixed reactions. A lyricist, he's not, though his Gap parody hits squarely between the eyes. Illiad's better at the episodic stuff -- see his Star Wars storyline from the last book, or the strange tale of the One True Ping. Thankfully, the all-singing, all-dancing shorts are kept to a minimum.
The Summary A potent mixture of wry social commentary, high technology, cynicism that bites back, and a good dose of innocence that really does win out in the end, if you can put this book down for very long, you're either playing Quake or utterly humorless. Submit to your inner Evil Genius, and let the rest of the world wonder why you're grinning so much. (And if you're really evil, you won't loan out your copy.)Purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
Table of Contents- Preface -- Eric S. Raymond
- Introduction -- Illiad
- The Comics
I guess I'll admit to enjoying UF and even (gasp) owning both books. Apparently this makes me a miscreant or a fallen angel or something. But I really can't see getting worked up to defend the strip. Nor can I see spending so much energy venting over it, either. There are things that get my blood boiling -- such as watching the race between governments and corporations to be the first to completely strip us of human dignity -- but a comic strip just doesn't make muster.
I simply don't have the time or energy to love or hate UF, or any strip, that much.
I suppose it's obvious how this thread has highlit the dangerous fanatic tendencies of the slashdot readership. We all too easily veer off into quasi-religious debate over topics of dubious significance. Far be it from me to intone "Get a life", but an emergency helping of perspective might be in order.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The (Note to IDG lawyers : fictional) character Pitr is often found reading a (Note to IDG lawyers : also fictional) book called 'Evil Geniuses for Dummies'. As we all know a certain publisher is (Note to IDG lawyers : allegedly) insanely protective of the name of a particular series of books bearing that series title. But since nice friendly O'Reilly are publishing this, they can use the title of an equally well-known range of computer books... their own Nutshell series.
And everyone knows (Note to IDG lawyers : in my opinion) how much more informative Nutshell books are than the 'For Dummies' series anyway...
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
I don't want to knock the book at all, but have no compunctions about lambasting this review ;-)
My [non-techie] wife found it amusing, which is unusual for geek humour. I liked it, but since I check User Friendly almost daily, I didn't see anything I hadn't seen before.
Correction: there is a new joke in the book, and it is the book. This is an O'Reilly "In a Nutshell" book, right down to the Colophon: "The animal on the cover is a Dust Puppy". I can't help but think that if IDG weren't such assholes about their trademarks, this could just as well have been "Evil Geniuses for Dummies".
Thanks to the reviewer for pointing out the missing text in the Windows refund storyline. I didn't get it, and didn't think to check the website to see if the print version was accurate.
Isn't it Mike who is haunted by the giant cola can? The reviewer says it's AJ, but I'm pretty sure it's not.
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At the time of writing, this is a first post.
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E_NOSIG
First off, let me save a lot of quoting and redundant responses by asking this: Where do you get off assuming that just because the poster you responded to doesn't like User Friendly that they are a Windows bigot? You are demonstrating first-hand the poster's assertions about User Friendly's problem being with it's fans, and you're giving fellow Linux users a bad reputation, especially with that "burn in NT hell" line.
A bit of jealousy perhaps? We never hear about "Suprise, Suprise. With the sale of new distributions Linus is once again bringing his sub-standard kernel to the universe". Why is that? Is it because he makes no money off of Linux and Illiad does? Money != bad.
That's a total non-issue. Comic strip artists like Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance do not have this issue because they handle marketing in a tasteful manner, unlike Illiad's crass "branding" web site. Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame once wrote an article in his 10th anniversary special book about how marketing in the manner Illiad is doing devalues and cheapens the art of the strip. Illiad can only hope to be half the comic strip artist that Bill Watterson was.
Audiences can not be commodized, product can.
Ah, but is that really true? Illiad has a fanatically loyal following of techie fans. Illiad is selling the ability for companies like SuSE to target and market to his audience by using his branded characters. In effect, Illiad is selling his audience to interested companies. Of course, this is just dithering about semantics, so I'll leave it at that.
First of all, since when has CARTOONS been considered art? It's COMEDY, by definition it's going to be formulaic, get over it. If you're looking for high-brow technical humor read some April 1st RFCs or something.
My, my. It's a sad commentary when a fan of an artistic media doesn't even recognize it as art. Perhaps your satisfaction with sit-com style formulae has stagnated your appreciation of what truly innovative and creative artwork and comedy should be.
Once again, I refer to Bill Watterson's 10th anniversary Calvin and Hobbes book on issues of the artform of comics. The essay there, which delves into the history of the artform before it became wedged into its current limited panel layout and forced schtick format is very educational.
The rich and gentle satire of politics and day to day living, Pogo, and it's modern day successor, Ozy and Millie, certainly qualify as a some of the best of the 20th century. Who can deny that the Sandman series of graphic novels are art? Certainly not the people who awarded it the Hugo award for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Perhaps you should pick up the latest offering, The Dream Hunters, which features a return of Neil Gaiman's strong evocative writing with Yoshitaka Amano's etherial, otherworldy artwork narrating the tale. Then you may still attempt to deny to the world that comics are art.
Just because User Friendly and many syndicated sellouts like Garfield and Dilbert seem increasingly incapable of producing art and non-formulaic humor as their profits from merchandising increase, don't assume that comics cannot be art. You are only appreciating the most bastardised version of it.
And this would prove what? You might has well have said "The first person that compares Tux to MS Bob gets a sticker"
That makes absolutely no sense. It's obvious you aren't familiar with the character Opus from Bloom Count or you'd be able to see the ways in which the Dust Puppy and he share many, many similar personality traits. The Dust Puppy is at best a tribute to and at worst a rip-off of Opus.
Jezus...what did they do to you to rip your sense of humour out so completely?
Perhaps, he just doesn't think that all comedy by definition should be formulaic as you do. Making fun of something can be funny. Making fun of someone making fun of something rarely is.
The keys to comedy are spontaneity, creativity, timing, and relevance to the audience. In the world of comic strips, #1 and #3 are usually handled in the layout and pacing of when certain lines happen, with the comedic twist almost always happening in the last panel. User Friendly well appreciates its market and has #4 well in hand.
It's #2, creativity, that User Friendly is sometimes seen as lacking in. This is much the same as Odie getting punted off a table by Garfield or Dilbert's boss saying something really stupid. They're running gags that have been run into the ground. Since you think all humor should be formulaic, you probably don't have an appreciation for the importance of this. However, those of us who do see the complete lack of creativity in a spoof of a spoof.
Do some exploring. There are plenty of good web comics that break the formulaic mold. I read about 30 or so of them a day. It shouldn't be hard to find one to match your tastes that is better than UF.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Try BigPanda.net for a shifting list of almost all independent web-comics.. and if you want to customize a page to view some of your favorites try Mycomix.Toonscape.com.. -They have permission from a lot of online cartoonists (independent) to post strips.. including PopeAlien.Comics
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