Microsoft Launches IT Superhero Comic

willdavid writes "Paul McDougall reports in InformationWeek on Microsoft's new online comic. The Heroes Happen Here comic strips are being created by Jordan Gorfinkel, a former DC Comics editor who helped revitalize the Batman series. 'Tech workers who in the middle of the night fix a downed server or take on a computer virus don't really have extraordinary powers. It just seems that way. But a new comic book has debuted in which IT pros literally are superheroes. The daily Web comic, called Heroes Happen Here, features tech savvy crime fighters like Lord Firewall, who "stands between chaos and order" and says things like "begone vermin!"'" And because it's never easy, in order to read the archives of the comic you're going to need to install Microsoft's Silverlight.

Comments

Just wondering

[Skevin]

Will the main villains of this strip also feature an evil software company that abuses its monopoly?
Will the heroes use Open Source in a positive responsible manner?

Solomon

Re:Just wondering

[Grishnakh]

Nope, the villains will be open-source using anarchists who use open source software to spread viruses. The heroes will only use properly licensed proprietary software, will say negative things about free software and reverse engineering, and will pay homage in a ritualized way to Microsoft 5 times a day.

I haven't looked at it (I don't have silverlight available on my Linux machine), but this comic sounds like a really stupid idea. Who wants to idolize some corporate goons? People always root for underdogs, and despite how much MS might try to somehow paint themselves that way, they're not an underdog, they're a big oppressor.

Re:Just wondering

[garlicbready]

No Mr Stallman I expect you to Die

Re:Just wondering

[rbanffy]

A couple years back, I got, for my birthday, a book called "Programmers at Work", edited by Microsoft Press. The book is a collection of interviews of programmers ranging from Andy Hertzfeld, Gary Kildall and Butler Lampson all the way to Bill Gates.

I strongly suspect it's not available today and never again will be printed in this form, mainly because in his interview, Bill Gates said:

Interviewer: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?
Bill Gates: No. the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system. You got to be willing to read other people's code, then write your own, then have other people review your code. You've got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you're doing wrong.

You have to love the fine irony.

Makes sense

[nine-times]

So Microsoft is admitting that you do need super-human abilities to keep Microsoft's crap from bombing out.

Re:So in the MS world of Superheros...

[Kuukai]

Or, better yet, is Steve Ballmer the new Green Lantern? Unfortunately, his ring only holds power over chairs...

Heroic plot idea

[Sloppy]

In a Web 2.0 twist, readers will be asked to submit real-life IT stories that could possibly be used for future episodes.

The hero deploys a mail client that doesn't execute a fucking attachment when someone clicks it. Then the hero deploys a web browser that doesn't execute someone else's code when a user looks at a web page. Then the hero deploys an OS that doesn't load and execute code from removable media whenever the user inserts the media, and doesn't automatically treat somebody else's code as automatically executable simply because the user happened to save it and then clicked it in their file manager.

The climax of the story: the users never have any problems and never bother to call him to remove viruses, because they never get any. The users are bored and nobody knows why. Nobody knows the sacrifice the hero made, because it wasn't really a sacrifice and it ended up costing less. The hero, tragically depressed because he missed out on all the !!!GLORY!!! of cleaning up easily predictable and preventable messes, walks off into the sunset.

Sound like a good episode?

Microsoft has no guts

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had to push Silverlight I'd immediately create a dozen porn sites allowing the download of free Silverlight encapsulated hires long movies. That would kill Flash in less than one month.

Re:Who is the target audience?

[Tribbin]

"Microsoft® Silverlight(TM) is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in ..."

What is this ".exe" file and how do I use it?

Re:Who is the target audience?

[gullevek]

yeah, but they are happy they have finally a place where they can use silverlight.

Cross-platform? (Re:Just wondering)

[Kiralan]

I find it interesting that Silverlight is announced as 'cross-platform' on its home page, and the compatibility chart lists Mac OS-10X, yet the license agreement only permits use on XP and Vista????

is that an example on the link?

[NotZed]

It isn't even funny. It isn't even remotely funny, nor particularly entertaining, and barely makes sense for that matter.

And the stereotyping is just sad - but what do you expect from 'an outsider'. Not all technical people are 1. overweight, 2. wear druggie shirts, nor 3. give a shit about hackers. And it's also pushing that other sickening stereotype that seems to pervade American comedy - that guys are bumbling/overweight 'lovable fools' and girls are smart and classy/usually at least a bit hot.

A very strange form of viral marketing for their craptastic clone of the craptastic flash software though. I imagine it could only be dreamt up in the strange cultures that develop in the closed world that Microsoft and other large companies seem to develop. (Novell was almost cult-like, and a little scary to be honest). I bet they thought it would be really 'cool', 'nifty', and 'hip', and no doubt plenty of their cult-members think the same.