Something Positive just broke me.

[AdInfinitum]

It's the End of Year Five comic.

Anyone else feel like...*URP* right now?

[OffSide7]

Another comic I hate... no idea why I read it. The art is hideous and the characters are all massively unpleasant and their personalities are forced.

When Davan spouted that nonsense about voice actors dying, it was like watching a 13 year old post on the internet about wanting to cut themselves for attention.

[Turcano]

I'm beginning to worry about S*P jumping the shark. I mean, we've had -- what, four? -- characters killed off, a wedding, and two "accidents" in one year. I'm afraid that it's slowly turning into Days of Our Lives (or more accurately, it suddenly turned into Days of Our Lives a year ago).

[beejazz]

Negativity's fine by me. It's the sentimentality that drives me up the wall. Ergh!

[Brickwall]

The baby is pushing it. However, I read it for the humor, and I read the plot so that the humor will make sense.

He's a funny guy, but he's a bit hooked on drama these days.

[endoperez]

I'm reading it for the characters. Check out the strips on from December 14th of 2005. I like S*P because things change. Sad things happen, good things happen, and I'm eager to see what the next development will be like. I hope it won't take another year to get to it, though...

[Kjata]

What the hell are you guys talking about? Care to give me a link?

[Dhavaer]

Something Positive

[Big_Red_Bird]

I really like S*P. I see lots of myself in Davan, but lately it just hasn't been as good. Hope next year is better.

[phobiandarkmoon]

I have to disagree with the negative comments above. Something Positive is always changing the way it's characters interact, what's happening and going back to characters we;ve forgotten about for a while.

Yes, it's extremely cynical and the lives of the characters get extremely messed up. And that makes it more involving for me, because bad things happen in real life, and while being funny the comic also addresses those issues.

On a lighter note, I can't stop laughing at the blue ferret thing that featured recently

[dahfishie]

I really liked the blue thingy too. It's a little bit of kookiness and comedy that the drama needed. I like Something Positive a lot. That kid thing threw me for a loop, but I think a bit of a loop was needed.

[Umbral_Arcanist]

I recently discovered it and enjoy it quite a lot. My only real problem was the wedding, i felt like the characters who got married were... hmmm... diminished by it and would hve worked better single... but i guess the author disagreed

[CuthroatMcGee]

The thing about Something Positive is that it is realistic. Its probably the most lifelike comic out there today (well, except for the liquid cat). That means that things happen in it. Sometimes those things are hysterical, sometimes they're sad. Often they're funny enough to outweigh the sappiness of some of the comics. I think S*P's still got a lot of mileage left in it, and I am looking forward to Year Six.

[Dretch]

The thing about Something Positive is that it is realistic. Its probably the most lifelike comic out there today (well, except for the liquid cat). That means that things happen in it. Sometimes those things are hysterical, sometimes they're sad. Often they're funny enough to outweigh the sappiness of some of the comics. I think S*P's still got a lot of mileage left in it, and I am looking forward to Year Six.

I agree. In fact, it's one of the few comics that can get away with such flagrent poignancy and comedy at once. There's a true sense of self with the comic; it's evident that it is deeply personal.

[Kilbia]

Dretch, I was going to argue for a bit until I realized you said personal rather than autobiographical.

Fun thing: I attended the webcomics panel at AnimeFest last year, and Randy was there. He mentioned that he's never had trouble coming up with dialogue for his characters, because they're all based on people in his life and thus it's easy for him to imagine what they'd say in that situation. And apparently he's never had any of the "real people" disagree with him...much as they would have liked to. :)

[Dhavaer]

Okay... creepy blue bear thing. Is this going to be a new Rippy the Razor?

[CuthroatMcGee]

Okay... creepy blue bear thing. Is this going to be a new Rippy the Razor?

Are you saying you don't like Rippy the Razor?

[Dhavaer]

Who couldn't like Rippy? But this bear is just weird.

[Turcano]

Okay... creepy blue bear thing. Is this going to be a new Rippy the Razor?

It was put in because ransom demands weren't met.

[xv bones]

Plus, Randy Milholland is a complete and total c*cksucker.

Hi, i'm the basis for the devious lesbian that completely screws over the really stupid blonde and plays with her heart. The really stupid blonde is based on one of my best friends, (who has an IQ that could snap you like a twig, mind you) who I dated for about a year and very nearly married.

He got third-hand information about how we broke up from the japanese chick he was dating at the time.

The basis for the very stupid blonde, one of my best friends and ex-fiancee, almost killed him in the middle of the street in Boston the night she read that series.

[Dhavaer]

Hi, i'm the basis for the devious lesbian that completely screws over the really stupid blonde and plays with her heart. The really stupid blonde is based on one of my best friends, (who has an IQ that could snap you like a twig, mind you) who I dated for about a year and very nearly married.

Which really stupid blonde? The only really stupid character who springs to mind is Monette, who is decidedly not blonde.

[Umbral_Arcanist]

Plus, Randy Milholland is a complete and total c*cksucker.

Hi, i'm the basis for the devious lesbian that completely screws over the really stupid blonde and plays with her heart. The really stupid blonde is based on one of my best friends, (who has an IQ that could snap you like a twig, mind you) who I dated for about a year and very nearly married.

He got third-hand information about how we broke up from the japanese chick he was dating at the time.

The basis for the very stupid blonde, one of my best friends and ex-fiancee, almost killed him in the middle of the street in Boston the night she read that series.

Hmm, i always understood it that Randy just took events in his/others lives and changed them for some drama and just used people he knew as inspirations for other characters.....


Also i have no clue which character you mean (same confusion as Dhavaer)

[Kilbia]

Plus, Randy Milholland is a complete and total c*cksucker.

Okay, no disrespect for what's obviously a tender spot in your past, but... this is hardly news to anyone who's read his work.

We've all got @$$holes in our lives. The question is whether they have other qualities which redeem that state in our minds. He's an @$$hole, but he's a funny @$$hole, so you keep him around, that kind of thing.

[valis]

It's the End of Year Five comic.

Anyone else feel like...*URP* right now?

No not at all. I first started reading this comic last spring. I've read the entire archives (while at work, I was being laid off) and I've noticed that at frist it was all jokes and cynical humor. As time went on he started to develop relationships and every now and again it would get kinda dark even for him. Wathcing the character Davan pass up sex has been frustrating for me but I think that Davan (and Randy) knows that casual sex doesn't solve anything. Right now I think he realizes that a lot of characters in his comic have made descions that will have serious repercussions. Randy hasn't painted himself into a corner he's just getting started.

[Millennium]

Plus, Randy Milholland is a complete and total c*cksucker.

Well, yeah; why do you think we love the guy so much?

Hi, i'm the basis for the devious lesbian that completely screws over the really stupid blonde and plays with her heart.

Um... are you sure we're talking about the same comic here? I can only think of two lesbians in the comic at the moment, and neither of them is particularly devious. The only female blondes I can remember in the comic are all straight, and the only really stupid character I can think of is a redhead (she is one of the two lesbians, though).

The basis for the very stupid blonde, one of my best friends and ex-fiancee, almost killed him in the middle of the street in Boston the night she read that series.

Link, please? I've been following this comic since late 2002 and have read all the comics before that point as well, but I honestly can't remember anything like the storyline you're claiming. You've certainly got me interested, though.

[mossfoot]

Something Positive fills that very difficult niche of blending comedy with drama. An ongoing storyline that doesn't (often) require you to know who is who (sometimes you do, but hey).

A strip that is only one-off jokes with no change in characters will inevitably lose reader interest. Just because it's a comic doesn't mean it's not fiction, and like fiction it must follow the cardinal rule: you have to have characters that change and grow in such a way that you care what happens to them.

You can call that a soap if you want, but there is a reason all them housewives are addicted to those shows. Hell, even Friends which ran for like 10 years, taps into the same thing.

The danger is to make it where it really is like a soap, where you are always in the middle of the story, where you have to read every single solitary strip and if you miss one you miss the plot, where nothing ever seems to get resolved and drags on forever.

So basically, going to either extreme is bad. Finding the right spot in the middle is the key, and I think Something Positive hits that mark far more often than it misses.

[Millennium]

I'm beginning to worry about S*P jumping the shark.

Funny; I'm more worried about the comic ending.

No, really. It seems as though he's been resolving plotlines left and right, and the new stuff he brings in all seem to be setting up for some kind of "...and this is what they did afterwards" sort of epilogue. Not that I can really complain -it's in the nature of comics to end- but it's still kind of concerning in a way.

[kamikasei]

Funny; I'm more worried about the comic ending.

No, really. It seems as though he's been resolving plotlines left and right, and the new stuff he brings in all seem to be setting up for some kind of "...and this is what they did afterwards" sort of epilogue. Not that I can really complain -it's in the nature of comics to end- but it's still kind of concerning in a way.

Milholland's said the comic has plotlines for several years yet. I don't think you need worry.

[Chalcara]

What I like most in Something Positive is that Randy has things happening OFFSCREEN. That's just great and gives a certain sense of... uh, reality?

Things happen and the reader does not necessary have to be there for them to happen.

Plus it fills my weekly quota for cynical and dark comments. *g*

[Turcano]

Funny; I'm more worried about the comic ending.

Okay, that statement is a little dated, the updates since the year's end made my fears unjustified. Randy seems to be back to normal; the ending of Year Five just seemed a little to "Days of Our Lives" in its delivery, I guess.

Oh, and xv bones, I have to ask, too. Who the hell are you talking about? I don't remember anything like that, and I'm apparently not alone in that.