First Guest Authors Feedback Thread

You've hit the nail on the head on why I didn't find LOLBAT funny. It's not like (some) memes aren't funny, but it's the difference between one poster deftly posting a meme at the right time in the middle of a thread conversation to mock, and someone who just posts them in every conversation. If LOLBAT's jokes aren't supposed to be funny to the player, then they really needed to have play up LOLBAT as the 'sad clown'.

Sonic Blast/Awesome?

And also, as you pointed out above but now contradict, the people who apparently worship him don't think that. They are portrayed as worshipping him dead straight (and grammatically incorrectly, as they are "toasting" their hamburgers. Toasting to them, as in waving them in the air? Or cooking them? Tidy up that grammar please!). Which returns to my point... the arc isn't even internally consistent to it's own setting. He's either a genuine hero (deserving or not is another question) in this world or he isn't. Which is it? The arc, and as I mentioned, in particular the final speeches of The Scrabbler, doesn't seem to be able to come down on one side of the question or the other. Is LOLBAT taking over the world, or is The Scrabbler hoping to dumb them down to LOLBATs level so he can beat them at Scrabble? Or is that just a positive side effect of him losing the fight he's in? It's simply not effectively written at that point.

Let me put it another, more general way; if a comic takes the stage, and opens with "What about those French eh? Don't they just suck?!", some people in his audience will laugh... but if the next line is "Let me tell you about the French, and how they do things so much better than us!" some other people will laugh. And a fair few will just go along with it because hey, they'll laugh at anything. But a group of the first people will now be thinking "Wait, what?". And if the comedian continues to constantly change through out the entire night, by the end of the evening, very very few people will be left feeling entertained in the audience. It's a basic rule of effective comedy that you sense just how far change can go, and carry the audience with you up too, but preferably not beyond that point.

So... yes, I've read PvP too, right from the start in fact when it was a UO themed web page; it slowly morphed into a gaming in general comic, and then into the office and private lives of the people it was set around. And, unsurprisingly, Kurtz is now running a LOLBAT week to tie into the arc release around it's latest supporting character. And I also read the insanely cliquey web forums which set themselves up for the PvP community after Kurtz closed his own boards a few times over, where they declare so and so was the golden age of PvP etc, to see what they think of his CoH arcs (most of them haven't commentated yet, as CoH isn't that popular)... so I'm well versed in what LOLBAT is, and sometimes fails to be even in the comic.

And overall in comic form he's a much deeper, and more expertly applied character. Just look at the comics being run this week; it's a superman setting, with the jokes being woven into the events... yesterdays punchline? "Invisible rope!" Funny, because it's a new spin using a meme on a classic Superman line. Today's punchline? Same again, but also ties into a long running and oft discussed theme about what Superman would really be doing if he had X-Ray vision. It's LOLBAT seen through a different lens, and that adds so much more to the comic and it's character without having to spell it out to you; just a little knowledge of perhaps the most famous superhero ever will provide the added humour. And it's consistently applied; notice in both yesterdays and todays that LOLBAT is taken apparently seriously by Louis...

But the Arc again? It's just I Kan Haz Cheezeburger. You know, the moment it's mentioned where he'll be going, and not because it's a witty reinterpretation, but because it's the laziest possible path to shoe horn in references to cheezeburgerz. There was nothing, in the entire world of Superman, Spiderman, Marvel, anything at all which could have been more creatively applied? And his opponent? Basically he's You Kan't Haz Cheeseburger. For health reasons yes, except he's actually a pot noodle himself. Um, ok? And the Burger Factory is also a restaurant and also the modelling agency that does their marketing too, depending on which NPC you find next.... It's wider world is horribly inconsistent even within it's own limited boundaries.

Now my own arc is a cowvacade of completely ridiculous puns admittedly, and the plot is somewhat fluid towards cramming even more in... but the important thing is that if you are on a laboratory map, they all at least be tied to that central concept. I did not, for instance, shove a cow mob into the lab just because the arc or mission as a whole was about cows; cow jokes, yes but the mobs there were either all scientists, or their then plot related opposition... And the jokes they said were also tied to their defined character (or in one case you TV Geeks may have spotted, to the theme, Cattlestar Galactica (ahem), and that show's own sub plot of seeking the Earth)... Give people the framework first, and then they'll get to the punchlines quicker and more powerfully too. Don't confuse people by making them stop and think "Wait, what is that supposed to be about? I thought that character was X or I was here for Y?"

Now the basic "Stop worshipping him, he's not the messiah!" joke is an old, old meme itself. Life of Brian did it decades before, and much, much better as well as more consistently... but then that film is still largely unparalleled so we couldn't expect a MA arc to do it to quite that standard. However, didn't anyone else notice that not only is it an old meme, but we get that exact same joke TWICE in the Guest Arcs, because that's basically Captian Dynamic and his dynamic with Geoff too (and in the Face Off arc, the people paid to pretend to like Dynamic)... he's not really that good, and everyone knows it outside of their own little inter-personal world? But there's at least one serious miss-step as I mentioned; Uncle Face could have been used as the dramatic counterplay to that, he knows his nephew is silly but helps out due to familial affection all the same. But instead you get a gun toting criminal thug... who wears the Egyptian head gear seriously too. So er... in Paragon City is that symbol of Face-hood taken seriously or not?

And so for arcs that only last let's say an hour at most to play through, not being able to carry the audience with you for even that distance is a major short falling in my eyes. Quest For Magic avoided that problem by basically being completely predictable and rigid instead, but is much better sketched as a result because presumably the author knew where his characters were going to go next too. The other 3 though seem to be trying to describe complete strangers to us, and for a comedy arc where you need to be able to straight from set up to punchline, that's a fatal failing.

Unless you automatically laugh at "I kan haz cheezburger" I suppose, in which case I'll admit I suppose it doesn't matter. But dare I say it... Ow, my balls?

You're incredibly hung up on the mission with Croc Pot in it. You realize that was one mission, right? Sure, you have to fight him in the last mission, which also uses his custom group, but the first and third mission don't involve cheezburgers or anything. Hell, they don't even involve memes. Scrabbler hates LOLBAT because he has horrible spelling.

And where the hell do you keep getting this think about Croc Pot being a parody of pot noodles? Frankly, you pulled that out of thin air. He's called Croc Pot because one of Batman's villains is Killer Croc. His name is just a pun, nothing more.

Didn't contradict, just made a mistake in typing the post. Essentially what I'm getting at, is that the arc states that LOLBAT comes from another city. In that other city, all the villains and LOLBAT are pretty much worthless, but nobody seems to realize. Then they come here and wreak havoc, and you're stuck dealing with these bush league villains. That's where the humor comes in. The worship of LOLBAT is part of that, as it's why the villains hate LOLBAT so much.

And really, if you have such a problem with the line about toasting their hamburgers, talk to Dr. Aeon about it. It's a good chance that's a typo or he forgot to write a word down or something. Personally, I thought it was pretty obvious that he was going for the visual image of them "clinking" their hamburgers together like champagne glasses.

And the plot of them mind controlling LOLBAT being incredibly vague and confusing? Also part of the joke. Again, they're completely terrible villains. At the end of Scrabbler's clue in the last mission, he realizes how terrible of an idea making everyone talk like LOLBAT is.

Honestly, I think you're too hung up on one character and a couple missteps in writing. You've missed the greater joke at play, especially if you think the entire joke is contained in the second mission.

Um no, it's called an example. We can, if you'd prefer, go through the entire arc line by line, spoiling it outright for everyone, and making this thread impossible to read by making a detailed debate of absolutely everything... But there's no need, because once more, you then proceed to contradict yourself, by listing yourself at least "a couple" of other criticisms I'd already made as well, so it's not as if I hadn't already used more than one example. Would you care then to retract your ridiculous claim that I'm hung up on one thing? They were illustrations of problems which run through the arc.

And do I really need to point out that you've now also changed your "typo", without addressing the still valid point that it doesn't matter what city they were in, because every statement now, every NPC we personally witness now, is in Paragon City. And the citizens of Paragon City act like X, but the NPCs at times seem to be responding like they are apparently doing Y instead. Again, you even make the same contradiction yourself;

If he's worshipped, here, now in this arc where we see the citizens of Paragon's reactions, then he's not bush league in Paragon City, is he?

This is really, really quite simple. You like what you think the joke is, and you'll blindly defend that joke... but you don't seem to care in the slightest bit about who tells it, or when, or even if the joke punchline even fits the build up any more, as long as it's been told. Tom Bosley! That's the punchline to a joke as well. There's a joke within a joke there too, because the set up refers directly to what you are doing. But do you know where it comes from? Nope. I do though... ho ho ho, and now I'm demanding you laugh! Laugh at the funny joke, even if you don't know why! But life doesn't work like that, and people won't laugh just because they are told there's a joke there... they have to get it too. Tom Bosley!

Incidentally, you ask if I understood if there were other missions... considering my examples, especially the clue in one which spoils the final mission by revealing which glowie is the true one to bring out the Croc, I rather suspect it reveals more about you and your own personal need to believe something about me, because I dared criticize this arc (What, do you think I played with my eyes closed except for the Croc mission?), than it does about anything else.

I also have to question if you even understand what LOLBAT is. So there's no memes in the first few missions, are there? That's your argument now is it? So your contact for those isn't LOLBAT is he? Oh wait... he is. And the whole point of the characterisation, and his opponents struggles with him is about the fact that LOLBAT is a living meme himself. So if he's in the first missions, by his very nature, what does that show about your awareness of the first missions?

Because my argument was the arc uses the memes in a completely hamfisted way... yes, even in the first missions... which the comics upon which it was originally based and is currently running again, generally doesn't, as I've already said. It's not that Kurtz isn't funny. It's that he's not that comparatively funny here.

But I tire of this... let's just point out why your comments are just ridiculous to try and debate. I want you to try and give a straight answer to this;

Ok... so it's a pun, is it? Right. Now explain what the "Pot" part of the pun is. Why not Croc Bucket? Croc Elephant? If the joke is only the Croc word, why isn't there just anything on the end there? Why not Croc Jesus?

I'll even be fair to Kurtz and say that, with a little bit of research, it's possible it's a better pun than I initially suspected, as I can find at least one other likely source which would fit the character; not a well known one outside of the US I dare say though, indeed the web page that supplied the information doesn't even list anywhere except the US and Canada as country choices. But it would be quite aptly chosen if that was the source. And there's at least one vaguely witty homophone to the name too...

But considering your tone, I'm only going to extend the same courtesy to you that you extended to me... you don't have an idea in "hell" why it's Croc Pot. You just assumed it must have been funny, grabbed the first word and made the first leap you could to justify it being funny (to Kroc from Batman... if with more research it's what I think it is, you're way off buddy), and then got insulted when people with far less partisan and far more inquisitive minds said "Wait, why the pot?". And then got angry with them, instead of making a coherent argument yourself or even asking why they saw the second part of the pun that you didn't, and thought it meant something else.

His name is a play on Killer Croc and the crock pot, a pot designed to simmer food for long periods of time without burning it, supposedly making for very healthy meals.

Not at all. I'm going based on your words.


There's arguably one fan of his in the arc, which is the girl with the I can haz cheezburger shirt, and I say arguably because the arc describes her as looking confused by the LOLBAT's speech. The people outside around LOLBAT "toasting" their cheeseburgers really are most likely people who are excited that the burger chain was rescued.

First, if I want to be obtuse, (and really, I see no reason why not, since you've gotten pretty damn combative) the contact's not in a mission. A contact introduces the the mission. Second, the first and third missions don't involve memes as part of the villains' actions. Monsieur Rongeur is robbing a bank, and Scrabbler is threatening to bomb a newspaper company. Unless there's some really obscure memes involving those two things, I think it's safe to say that LOLBAT's dialogue sandwiched in between missions is the only meme-related thing "in" those two.

You see, unlike your example, all of the pieces of LOLBAT's joke are there. I've explained it at least twice now, but I guess I'll have to use plainer english: LOLBAT and the memes are the setup, not the punchline.

Unfortunately, DeviousMe already ruined it, because you were so close!

Hmm, what's a name for a cooking utensil that contains a word that sounds like the name of a Batman villain? (LOLBAT is a Batman parody, after all.)

Oh yes, a Crock Pot.

I love your portrayal of me as a moronic fanboy, but honestly I got the reference of the name when Croc Pot first showed up in the PvP comic. It's kind of clever, really.

You probably overthought it, considering you were thinking of looking for references outside of the U.S. and Canada for it and just didn't see the most obvious pun.

By the way, that's not me trying to make a personal attack against you.

And really, neither was my initial post. I disagreed with your analysis of the arc's direction of humor, and yes, I did defend it, because I had a different interpretation and since this IS a feedback thread, after all, I thought I should list my contradicting interpretation just in case someone is looking in here to see what other people thought of the arcs, and if they would enjoy them or not.

You have some valid points, about things like the description of "toasting" hamburgers being too ambiguous. And honestly, all I really was stating was "Humor is subjective, and you didn't find it funny. I did. Other people might find it funny too, and for more reasons than 'lol netspeak is funny'."

Sorry man, my bad. But I just couldn't put up with that anymore.