How to help Orson Scott Card

Well, Orson Scott Card is at it again. He's posted a rant where he states that legalized gay marriage is "The end of democracy in America". No doubt this will cause a number of people to vow never to read his books again, while others will defend his works as separate from his homophobia.

I suppose that I'm one of the few people who have always found OSC's works to have a really creepy subtext of homoeroticism, homoerotic violence and child abuse (frex: it's OK to torture and destroy a handsome youth, because it's for "the greater good). So actually, I don't find OSC's attitude all that surprising. I don't buy his books because of his rants; I don't buy them because I find his attitude has always permeated his works.

As far as his obsession with homosexuality and gay marriage, I like the Metafilter poster who boiled it down to:


1.:  I am a normal heterosexual guy
2.:  I constantly crave cock and only have sex with my wife due to social pressure
3.:  Without that social pressure, all us normal heterosexual men would ditch our wives and head straight for the gay bathhouses
4.:  Therefore, strong social (and legal) pressure is necessary for the human race to keep reproducing


In other words, I can't think of any author who more desperately needs a long bout of mutual cock-sucking than Orson Scott Card.  It's a pitythat I can't ask anyone to make that ultimate sacrifice.

10 Helpful Art Hints for Would-be Webcomic Artists

1. The is the big one. DON'T use an anime/manga style as an excuse to not learn how to draw. It won't work. This isn't a slam on the anime/manga style: I read a number of strips where the artist has integrated those stylistic elements into their own style. But, they learned how to draw FIRST.

2: The above also goes for American Comic Book styles.

3: Don't try a really sketchy/scratchy style to conceal your lack of drawing skill. Jules Fieffer you are not.

4. I repeat: unless you're going for sprites, photos or abstract art, learn to draw FIRST. Put the damn "How to Draw" books away, and attend some art classes.

5. If you can't draw hands, see #2. Hiding the hands behind backs or off panel won't work.

6. Don't think computer coloring will save you. MS Paint won't compensate for bad art.

7. If the only way you can tell the characters apart is their hairstyles, rethink your character concepts. or see #2.

8. Likewise, if putting the characters into different outfits renders them unrecognizable, see #2.

9. As far as using 3-D wireframe or CGI programs? Just don't. Read up on the Uncanny Valley, and just leave it alone.

10. Don't restart the strip every time you learn to draw better. OK, once may work, if it's not too far along. But not more than once.

[Green Moon] Game Research: Abandoned Cities

For my post-technology world-building project, I'm doing a lot of research. One bit of research is focused on getting the feeling of either layers of civilization, or simply of areas that have been deserted for ages. The internet, interestingly, has lists of deserted places that I can use for inspiration.


20 Abandoned Cities: I like this, because it's the feel of an abandoned area that I'm trying to grasp. Now all I have to do is translate it into fantasy/futuristic terms.

7 more abandoned towns and cities

7 abandoned cities and towns of the USSR: I love the picture of the abandoned giant whatsit- I want to have this feeling, of unknown abandoned devices sitting out in the open, theri past functions forgotten.

Dead Cities: Serjilla: A classic lost city: I like the idea of this not as a goal, not as a source of a dungeon or treasure, but as an indication of age, of things lost and forgotten.

Chaco Canyon
Mesa Verde: Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon to me are two of the classic abandoned cities, even if now we have a good idea of where the people went. Flourishing cultures that just abandoned their cities when the climate changed. Also, since of all building materials rock lasts the longest, I'm thinking that the most common remnant of past civilizations will be made of stone. Of course I'm going to have to remind myself not to set everything in a desert.

Abandoned Spacecraft City: weird, modernesque, and sad at the same time. Now imagine those buildings made out of some super-tough substance that doesn't decay, or out of some organic shell, or living wood, with all interior furnishings and outside signs of civilization eroded away or buried.