2000 AD Online Forum

Harry Kipling or Lobster Random - which one do you want to see more of?

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When it comes to aquatic named characters, Kippers is the Codfather for me and I always have a whale of a time with it, while Lobster's a bit like being slapped in the face with a wet fish.

TBH I dont really care for either but if push came to shove I'd go for Lobster. Just because of the art.

Love Lobster Random.  More robot-shagging soon please!

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Lobster Random isn't too bad at all when it doesn't try too hard but I'm not a fan of Harry Kipling.

That said I'm a bit scared of being lumped with the obnoxious wankers that the writer so elegantly talks about in Thrill Power Overload.

I like them both me. Prefer Lobster though, but Boo Cook's art almost swings it....picked Lobster.

"That said I'm a bit scared of being lumped with the obnoxious wankers..."


I wank rather elegantly.

Obnoxious wankers being anyone who talks about not liking Harry Kipling? Or just the board in general?

Woof! Woof!

"Obnoxious wankers being anyone who talks about not liking Harry Kipling? Or just the board in general?"

No he talks about people who don't like his stuff no matter what and calls them Obnoxious Wankers.

Thrill power overload really is warts and all and shows how some people can be overly defensive. everyone's entitled to their opinion.

::"people who don't like his stuff no matter what"

Well, there does seem to be a pattern, sometimes, of people disliking a particular writer, rather than their stories.  So, whenever said writer produces a new story, people may openly dislike it on the basis that it was written by that writer, without taking the time to just read the story and figure out what they think of that.
 
Further, in criticising the writer, rather than the story, they may come across as "obnoxious wankers" - a bit like the people that call Pat Mills a homophobe or a mysoginist, based on highly spurious arguments backed up by very selective evidence gathering techniques.

I liken it to the phenomenon of hating Tom Cruise (for either his bizarre religeous beliefs or some of the turkeys he's starred in), and therefore not being able to appreciate some of the amazing acting he's capable of.  (I'd personally cite examples such as Magnolia and Rain Man, just to get started.)

People (me included) can be really bloody rude about 2000AD creators' work, so I'm not sure why a defensive vibe springs up when a creator reacts to it in (relative) kind.  

It smacks of an obvious hypocrisy - especially in jabish's last statement, there - where he defends the right of everyone to have an opinion whilst at the same time criticising someone for expressing theirs.

"No he talks about people who don't like his stuff no matter what and calls them Obnoxious Wankers."

Let's remain in-context please, Jabish.

Rumour control.  Here are the facts.

"Yeah, itâ??s definitely a marmite strip.  I have all sorts of theories about why some people love it and some people hate it; mostly to do with exactly what people expect to get out of their prog: a religious experience, or a pulpy diversion.  Bec & Kawl is silly, light-entertainment nonsense for people who like silly, light-entertainment nonsense, and thatâ??s the start and end of it.  Ultimately it comes down completely to the personal tastes of each individual reader, and if you try to pigeonhole or second-guess them youâ??re only going to end up making an idiot of yourself.  For what itâ??s worth Iâ??ve noticed B&K seems to go down pretty well amongst the fairer sex and the younger readers, but it has its hardcore fans and its hardcore detractors amongst the noisiest parts of the fanbase too.  There was a time when I got quite depressed about it not being greeted with universal adoration, but thatâ??s the sort of thin-skinned idealism that quickly gets trampled as you grow older, as you continue to learn and develop, and above all as you start getting good at ignoring the obnoxious wankers whoâ??ll always hate your work no matter what."

Mmmmm...

Now I don't know who to believe..!

So in Spurrier's opinion one is an obnoxious wanker if one hates his work regardless of its quality.

Difficult to disagree with that...

Those are old quotes, Spurrier.  Give us new ones.  When are Lobster Random and Bec & Kawl coming back?

I'd have a hard time choosing between Lobster and Kipling. Neither of them are masterpieces, but both are suprisingly good fun. I like it that both are true to 2000AD in that at the heart of both series is a weird and interesting character.

Spurrier's a difficult writer to make decisions about. His style of writing is frequently annoying and tedious (to me), but his ability to produce product with potential (fully realised or not) is staggering - it's hard to think of any writer other than Pat Mills in the early days of 2000AD who is coming up with so many ideas for series. If he could start relying more on punchy dialogue instread of text boxes to tell his stories I'd be a lot happier.

He's got the ideas, he's got the drive to knuckle down and write, and he can tell a story in a comic strip format. I just think he needs to slow down a little and think about what he's writing and the way he's writing it.

Regards

Robin

a nice passage. So it's pretty much like Jabish said.

Dare you.

(Safe for work)

Link: http://www.iamlost.com/features/robotporn/

What if the person who hates the writers script regardless is female? Are they still wankers? Or are they obnoxious filddlers, pokers, kit-kat shufflers etc?

Its so hard to know the correct phrase now the world is so PC.

The Lobster for me.

I can see all the hard work that goes into Kipling but it just doesn't tickle my giblets.

I'd even go so far as to say that, even though he may not have intended to, when Si refers to people who "hate YOUR work no matter what" he's making a statement for ALL writers not just himself.

Satanist - I understand wanker to be an asexual noun.

It's only when you get into the more colourful metaphors that gender rears it's ugly head (so to speak).  

For example, one would expect that only males would spank the monkey, choke the chicken, buff the banana, hold the sausage hostage, jack the beanstalk, round up the tadpoles, slap-box the one-eyed champ, apply the hand brake, attack the one-eyed purple-headed warrior, choke Kojak, squeeze the cream from the flesh Twinkie, bash the bishop, stroke the salami, shake hands with the milkman, answer the bone-a-phone, play with Pam and her five sisters or have a quick fifty off the wrist.

On the other hand, female protagonists might have a night in with the girls, polish the peanut, dial the rotary phone, feed the bearded clam, have a date with slick mittens, learn to play the clitar, squeeze the peach, trawl the bermuda triangle, tiptoe through the two-lips, part the red sea, go pearl fishing, grope the grotto, hitchhike to heaven, toss the pink salad, partake in gusset typing, soak the whisker biscuit or hee-haw with wrinkled mee-maw.

Can I still be an obnoxious wanker if I don't hate Si Spurrier's work? ;-)

I'm not voting, because I want both stories back.

That said, I'm the lone voice in the wilderness who can't really get into the Simping Detective...

- Trout

Surely Spurrier is just saying what we all think: "You don't like my work, huh?  None of it?  Well fuck you, you oboxious wanker!".  Seems reasonable to me.

Hey, whatever happened to that shiny new CoC we have around here?  

Sorry guys, I really didn't mean for this to turn into anything. I kind of meant what I said in the first post with a sarcastic wink that didn't make the post. When I talked about expressing opinion i did mean everyone. That said the passage quoted above did jar when I read it in TPO. I guess I didn't expect the writer to say something like that.

Ah well we all have our opinions, and this was in no way meant to be an attack. I like a lot of Si Spurrier's stuff, and I think Robin low hit part of the nail on the head. Moreover I'm deeply impressed to see someone work hard and go from winning a pitch contest at a small convention to produce a large body of work and land a mini series at the worlds biggest publishers. Nice one.

As an actor I hate reading reviews so if I was a comic writer i'd never read message boards.

Can't be good for the brain.

Best of luck.

Yo Si'

Love your work - I'm still a wanker though

What's wrong with wanking anyway? It's brilliant.

I chose neither. I cant think of anything I like about these two strips. Does this make me the biggest wanker on the board? So be it! :-D

play the clitar

At last a fourth instrument to go alongside the Hairy Banjo, the Pink Oboe and the Skin Flute.

Cheers Funt.

Can't get enough of either. Lobster Random is the crazier of the two so I put it ahead by a nose.

The phrase 'partake in gusset typing' has the fiancee reduced to snortleing and giggles and is unable to put two words together.

Im surprised no-one's mentioned 'taking Captain Picard to warp factor 10' yet...

Both. Sometimes at the same time, please.

Lobster Random by a LONG way! By far and away the funniest strip in the prog since Big Dave (Any chance of him coming back, Tharg?). Never really got the whole Kipling thing. Character doesn't really appeal to me - just not my cup of tea, I suppose. And special thanks to Funt Solo for his exhaustive research on the various expressions for spanking the monkey. Had me in absolute stitches!

I personally think its pretty normal to hate everything someone does on the principle theres something about their style that rubs you up the wrong way.  

For example, I love Pats stuff for its bonkers ideas but I can see why that mightnt be enough for someone who hates the expositionary dialogue he gives his characters.  I dont think Pats ever going to change his style to the degree that everyone would come around to loving his stuff, without him becoming a totally different person!

Another extreme example might be Fleischer.  Possibly a better example might be Mark Millar, who did some stuff I found terrible, made an arse of himself in the comics press and made me dislike him as an individual as much as I disliked his writing  (i do think Pat Mills suffers from this a bit, what with his fan bashing). This actually fed into my dislike of his writing and really didnt make me predisposed to having an open mind, I'll accept.  

Now, Red Son or whatever superheroics hes churning out, might be just my cup of tea, if he's had a a talent overhaul, but I'm not really going to be motivated to seek it out and reappraise it.

As for the choice - definitely Lobster Random of the two.  

"Both. Sometimes at the same time, please."

Are we still talking about wanking or is this back to 2000AD?

Wow! That bear robot is the same as the ones from the latest ABC Warriors.