Mezzacotta

[Kosmopolite]

Link. (http://www.mezzacotta.net/)

The latest outing from DMM and the other creators or Irregular Webcomic and Darths and Droids. Has anyone else come across it?

Personally, I'm not that fussed. Maybe I just don't get it, I dunno.

[Sanjay]

Reading this, I feel like there is some concept about these comics that I'm not getting. Like maybe they are randomly generated or something?

[Nerd-o-rama]

I was under the impression the whole site was some kind of joke/parody about overhyped, badly-designed websites.

I hope I'm right.

[The Extinguisher]

I was wholly unimpressed.

I was expecting something different.

[Sanjay]

I do enjoy that archive searching features dates both in AD and BC.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

I canno' see the images.

[Deus_e_Machina]

Reading this, I feel like there is some concept about these comics that I'm not getting. Like maybe they are randomly generated or something?

I think so, and the generation is some function based on the date?


I canno' see the images.

Perhaps your browser lacks SVG support? If you're using Internet Explorer this might be the case - I think they have a post on how to fix it in the mezzacotta blog from before the release, if you particularly care.

[UglyPanda]

http://www.mezzacotta.net/?p=60

It appears to be a depository of quickly-made strips and they wish for readers to sift out the good ones for them.

It's probably randomly-generated. It seems quite likely since inputing new dates takes much longer to load than comics which you know to exist.

[The Extinguisher]

Okay. That's cool. I didn't know that. It's still not what I was expecting, but hey. What can you do?

[Mando Knight]

Perhaps your browser lacks SVG support? If you're using Internet Explorer this might be the case - I think they have a post on how to fix it in the mezzacotta blog from before the release, if you particularly care.

The blog post is this one... (http://www.mezzacotta.net/?p=32)

Apparently, so long as you're running a current non-IE browser, you should be golden.

Mezzacotta has to be randomly generated by a function of the date, as you can enter dates from before transistors were known to man (and especially before David Morgan-Mar was born) (for example, 2000 BC) and still get a viable comic, so long as the date is otherwise valid. (February 30 of any year won't work, and Feb 29 only works for leap years, etc.)

However, the program does have a function that figure out whether the date given has happened yet--you can't see tomorrow's comic, and you definitely can't Archive Binge (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArchiveBinge) the future. Heck, binging the past archives is nigh impossible given the nearly infinite number of comics.

EDIT: Double-checking the trope, I saw that it does indeed reference Mezzacotta as an un-binge-able webcomic... and the entry on Mezzacotta (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mezzacotta) itself states that the "oldest comic" is older than the universe itself by nearly two orders of magnitude... (assuming that the date given by the article as the beginning of the universe is correct, of course...)

[Sanjay]

I guess for right now they'd rather be all mysterious about their methods than actually explain what they are doing.

[idksocrates]

Since i was mostly aware of how the comic worked before I actually read it, I never suffered from the disappointment. I love the gimmickiness of it. The fact that some of these randomly generated comics are better than some of the jokes that some other webcomics actually use is quite a biting satire. Particularly all the meta-webcomic jokes (which i despise the majority of).

[Gez]

These two:

http://www.mezzacotta.net/archive.php?date=-99-11-18
http://www.mezzacotta.net/archive.php?date=-5679392-11-17

I'm not these two are really random. Infinite typewriter monkeys, I know, but still.

[Mauve Shirt]

The concept is ok.... the dates thing is confusing. But I don't find the comics that I've read funny at all, and the fact that I can't click through them makes me not want to try to find funny ones.

[Kupi]

The random-generation thing is nifty, but from the initial blog post it seems like Mezzacotta is a catch-all for any idea that circle of creators comes up with and implements. So, if they thought it would be cool to make a wikicomic-- four panels that anyone can edit-- they might put that up on Mezzacotta too.

Now to get in touch with Morgan-Mar and tell him about this half-baked idea of mine.

[idksocrates]

These two:

http://www.mezzacotta.net/archive.php?date=-99-11-18
http://www.mezzacotta.net/archive.php?date=-5679392-11-17

I'm not these two are really random. Infinite typewriter monkeys, I know, but still.

well, it's not entirely random generation - from what i gather, each "character" in mezzacotta is based on any of a number of ai talking algorithms, with it's own database of "potential responses" and mood. Have you heard of jabberwacky and similar conversation programs?

One character's database, for instance, is entirely composed of dnd sourcebook entries. One character just repeats back what other characters say to him. Some characters like to talk about meta-humor aspects of comics, which tends to be a very common and generic thing do in in crappy webcomics. The way it works out, some of them wind up being better than the derivative smut that winds up coming out of some "written" comics.

[dmmaus]

Mezzacotta is a catch-all for any idea that circle of creators comes up with and implements. So, if they thought it would be cool to make a wikicomic-- four panels that anyone can edit-- they might put that up on Mezzacotta too.

Now to get in touch with Morgan-Mar and tell him about this half-baked idea of mine.
Consider me contacted and told about...

[Sanjay]

Now that I understand what's going on, I'm actually a big fan of this.

[Gez]

Consider me contacted and told about...

Hello Dave! :smallsmile:

[itsmeyouidiot]

DMM is probably making an attempt at surreal humor (or humour, if you're British.)

I like. Reminds me of other strange webcomics, like White Ninja.

[Fri]

well, well.. Actually, at first it's a really big meh for me. But then, it kinda grows on me. I rarely found ANY comic funny anyway.

[rwald]

Honestly, a rather large "meh" from me too. Sure, there's some elegance in randomly-generated comics, and a million monkeys are right twice a day, but it's not worth the effort of going through the haystack to find the wheat. And if the real enjoyment is gained by reading the comics others have already picked out as funny, it would seem some other system for harvesting wikimagic would be more efficient. I've yet to be convinced that Infinity on Thirty Credits a Day will produce anything interesting (possibly because I'm still bitter that the "space race" plot won, when the Firefly-like "smuggling random things" plot seemed to be more promising), but perhaps this sort of thing works better in a continuity-free gag-a-day format.

[Trazoi]

Actually, I thought today's Hall of Fame comic (http://www.mezzacotta.net/archive.php?date=1433-04-13) was quite amusing, at least by random text standards.