From where I stand -- they just haven't held up. There are taped-up Far Side cartoons that I've passed in the hallway every day for years that I still laugh at. Far Side collections, Calvin & Hobbes, old Dilberts all still make me laugh. Bloom County turned out to be just a bunch of tossed-out references to '80's pop culture. 20 years later, it's as dated and forced as, say, brand new Doonesbury strips.
Well, sure, but that's hardly fair. Calvin Hobbes was supposed to be timeless-- it was about childhood. Far Side was supposed to be timeless-- it was so bizarre that no frame of reference was required.
But Bloom County's humour was tied into the world at the time-- not just current events, but the general North American attitude about the world. That's why it worked. That's what set it apart from comics like Family Circus or Marmaduke that can rerun strips from thirty years ago without anyone noticing.
Some of the jokes in Bloom County won't hold up well now, sure. But try watching the Simpsons in 20 years and see how much of the humor holds up.
Yes, Opus is back. But Bill was the one who made that noise. Opus' sensitivity and trusting nature made him a great center to both Bloom County and Outland, but without the cool intellectuality of Milo Bloom and the brash, unfounded self-confidence of uberfratboy Steve Dallas, can Opus have the same soft-hearted appeal?
Given how quickly many of the Bloom County characters showed up in Outland (remember, it was supposed to be a brand new strip centered around Ronald-Ann at first), I'd say the odds are pretty good that the others will make an appearance before too long.
Let's just hope it's the cool, lady-killer Steve and not the wimpy Liberal one who was zapped by alines.
Amazing, my impression was that Opus was a throw-away character but came into his own when the he was accosted somehow the term in the subject line came out of "Prayer Temples for Hare Krishnas".
Yes, Opus was intended as a throwaway character at the beginning. He didn't speak, and he even looked like a real penguin (instead of looking more like, as Binkley would point out years later, a puffin).
The "Pear Pimples" strip wasn't his first appearance, but it was one of the first in which he could talk. It was around the same time as the strips of him watching TV and concluding that Mr. Rogers had lost his mind.
He didn't develop into his now familiar character -- trusting, naive, uncertain -- for quite a while. Should be interesting to see what he's up to now.
I'd suggest Moneyball by Michael Lewis, a book that follows Oakland A's GM Billy Beane through the 2002 season.
Yes, I know, the idea of reading a book about sports is probably not appealing to most slashdotters. But this one may be different. Essentially the book describes how Beane and his staff of math geeks and computer nerds have been able to succeed on a low budget by employing some radical ideas about player talent evaluation.
If you've ever wanted to see a real-life case study of the smart kids beating the jocks at their own game, this is it.
In addition to all the other innovations mentioned elsewhere, Dungeon Master was one of the first games to have an alternate ending. Yes, every game now ships with four or five different endings, but in 1987 this was considered extremely cool. It was also somewhat "hidden", in that most people who played the game never found it.
The "real" storyline of the game involves finding a staff, finding a gem, fusing them together and then killing Foozle the Wizard. But the actual quest layed out in the manual only mentions getting the staff and returning it to the "good guy" wizard who sends you on the quest.
Do that, and you get a brief and somewhat surprising alternate ending to the game.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Trinity dies for no reason, as they don't use her death in any meaningful way.
No, she dies so that they don't have to waste time dealing with her reaction to Neo dying. See? Now it makes sense!
From where I stand -- they just haven't held up. There are taped-up Far Side cartoons that I've passed in the hallway every day for years that I still laugh at. Far Side collections, Calvin & Hobbes, old Dilberts all still make me laugh. Bloom County turned out to be just a bunch of tossed-out references to '80's pop culture. 20 years later, it's as dated and forced as, say, brand new Doonesbury strips.
Well, sure, but that's hardly fair. Calvin Hobbes was supposed to be timeless-- it was about childhood. Far Side was supposed to be timeless-- it was so bizarre that no frame of reference was required.
But Bloom County's humour was tied into the world at the time-- not just current events, but the general North American attitude about the world. That's why it worked. That's what set it apart from comics like Family Circus or Marmaduke that can rerun strips from thirty years ago without anyone noticing.
Some of the jokes in Bloom County won't hold up well now, sure. But try watching the Simpsons in 20 years and see how much of the humor holds up.
Yes, Opus is back. But Bill was the one who made that noise. Opus' sensitivity and trusting nature made him a great center to both Bloom County and Outland, but without the cool intellectuality of Milo Bloom and the brash, unfounded self-confidence of uberfratboy Steve Dallas, can Opus have the same soft-hearted appeal?
Given how quickly many of the Bloom County characters showed up in Outland (remember, it was supposed to be a brand new strip centered around Ronald-Ann at first), I'd say the odds are pretty good that the others will make an appearance before too long.
Let's just hope it's the cool, lady-killer Steve and not the wimpy Liberal one who was zapped by alines.
Amazing, my impression was that Opus was a throw-away character but came into his own when the he was accosted somehow the term in the subject line came out of "Prayer Temples for Hare Krishnas".
Yes, Opus was intended as a throwaway character at the beginning. He didn't speak, and he even looked like a real penguin (instead of looking more like, as Binkley would point out years later, a puffin).
The "Pear Pimples" strip wasn't his first appearance, but it was one of the first in which he could talk. It was around the same time as the strips of him watching TV and concluding that Mr. Rogers had lost his mind.
He didn't develop into his now familiar character -- trusting, naive, uncertain -- for quite a while. Should be interesting to see what he's up to now.
I'd suggest Moneyball by Michael Lewis, a book that follows Oakland A's GM Billy Beane through the 2002 season.
Yes, I know, the idea of reading a book about sports is probably not appealing to most slashdotters. But this one may be different. Essentially the book describes how Beane and his staff of math geeks and computer nerds have been able to succeed on a low budget by employing some radical ideas about player talent evaluation.
If you've ever wanted to see a real-life case study of the smart kids beating the jocks at their own game, this is it.
I'm late on posting this, but oh well...
In addition to all the other innovations mentioned elsewhere, Dungeon Master was one of the first games to have an alternate ending. Yes, every game now ships with four or five different endings, but in 1987 this was considered extremely cool. It was also somewhat "hidden", in that most people who played the game never found it.
The "real" storyline of the game involves finding a staff, finding a gem, fusing them together and then killing Foozle the Wizard. But the actual quest layed out in the manual only mentions getting the staff and returning it to the "good guy" wizard who sends you on the quest.
Do that, and you get a brief and somewhat surprising alternate ending to the game.