02-3-06

Drawing from Life
"Write what you know," is so much the credo of creative writing instructors that they should have t-shirts printed up.  Like so many other basic tenets of writing, however, it is often misunderstood as a warning to only write about familiar subjects.  Young writers—mostly because no one tells them—often don't understand that "write what you know" means "write from your own knowledge; do your research, and avoid invention when reality will contradict you."  Sometimes they allow the phrase to limit them, and auto-biographical and semi-autobiographical fictions are the result. 
          When dealing in webcomics, delving into the world of autobiography immediately presents two major difficulties.  The first is Mary Sue.  It's very easy to allow yourself to be drawn down into the magical world where the hero always does everything right—especially if the hero is an avatar for yourself.  But that's not the only problem.  The other difficulty, is that no autobiographical comic can escape being compared to Jin Wicked's Crap I Drew on My Lunchbreak.  That comparison, unfortunately, leaves most comics—especially those drawn by beginning artists—looking like a Precious Moments figurine that somehow got included in a Michelangelo exhibit.
          Way Too Random, by Joshua Desanto and Amanda Valentini, is no Crap.  Luckily, it's also not crap.  Simply put, WTR is the tale of Josh and Amanda, and the challenges they face attending Penn State in their early twenties (having delayed college long enough to have served time in the US Army).  It's safe to say they neatly avoid the Mary Sue trap.  Amanda, as presented in the strip, is self-effacing, but occasionally psychotic; Josh is...well, he's an early twenties guy, with all that entails.  Neither character is perfect, and both come off as humanly flawed.
          I won't tell anyone to rush over and read WTR, however.  The strip is definitely still developing.  DeSanto needs to work on the pacing of his humor, for one thing.  Some jokes, especially in the first twenty or so strips, miss their punch.  Some strips continue beyond the joke as if the brakes on his typewriter were loose.  And the characters are all largely interchangeable in the strips.  Any character could easily speak any line that has so far been printed.  It's not bad writing, by any stretch of the imagination, but it needs work, and practice.  And a good spelling dictionary.
          The art still has some room to grow, as well, but not a lot.  While DeSanto still seems out to sea in his characterization and plotting, Valentini's art has grown from the inconsistent and almost childish work of the early strips (some of which included the always-fun sidescrolling of Infinite Canvas), to well-defined and recognizable characters.  Lately, she's been experimenting with patterns and screen, which, while occasionally distracting, serve to offer some depth to her intentionally-flat panels.  He biggest difficulty is in producing clean art:  many of the strips show scanning artifacts that intrude into your vision like ghost images on a TV screen.
          In the interest of fairness, I have to admit that WTR really isn't for me.  I'm too far from college and my own abbreviated military service to relate to much of the humor.  But it's not written for embittered, middle-aged writers; it's written for a younger audience, and it seems to capture its own youth fairly well.  And it's improving with every strip.  It's especially good beginning with the "Reload 2" break in the archives.
          It's not Crap.  But it's getting there.

Way Too Random by Joshua DeSanto and Amanda Valentini

Updates: T/Th
Caveats:  Inconsistent art, writing.
Rating:

EDIT:  Fixed the "Mary Sue" link to one that won't expire the day after I post it.