Employees have rights, it is just that most of the time they are not aware of them. An employer isn't going to take the time to teach a new-hire that whistleblowing is protected by OSHA.
no we're talking the right not to have your contract terminated on a fucking whim.
Employees have rights, it is just that most of the time they are not aware of them. An employer isn't going to take the time to teach a new-hire that whistleblowing is protected by OSHA.
no we're talking the right not to have your contract terminated on a fucking whim.
Most U.S. workers do not have contracts, under the doctrine of "at-will employment."
There are exceptions, such as being a member of a union, but since I've never heard of a software developer or tester union then that doesn't really apply to this discussion.
In addition there are certain cases that constitute wrongful termination regardless of whether or not you have a contract. Prominent examples include when an employee is fired because of discrimination or (the one that's important here) "for refusing to commit illegal acts."
so does every form of running an economy. Whoever can come out on top, will. It's not like any other form somehow magically makes people not greedy fucks.
Even in some of the lowest-level jobs I've worked there was a number that you could call anonymously to report violations in situations where you were concerned for your job safety.
I recommend that anyone who finds themselves in a situation where their bosses are making them do things they shouldn't be doing should do alittle research and figure out a way to go over their heads and make a complaint, either to corporate or to the regulatory agency that is in charge of that sort of work. We don't live in a hopeless, depressing, Orwellian society, that's just what the people who are violating your rights want you to believe so you won't tell the authorities and apparently it works on a lot of people.
It's like the employment equivalent of "Don't tell anyone I sexually-assaulted you or everyone will think you're a slut."
So far, the only thing I've enjoyed about The Trenches is the confessionals. Even if they stop doing the strip, I'd keep showing up to read those. The strips aren't offensive, but I've yet to laugh at one. It doesn't help that I've never started reading a comic at strip 1. I usually have months if not years to go back through. I would have really prefered for there to be a bank of strips to get everyone going from day one as opposed to slowly trickling out a story. Considering how long this has been in the works, it doesn't seem unreasonable. The whole "seasons" thing has me scared. I'm infereing that this isn't going to run that long before it takes a hiatus. Hopefully it just means there will be a solid story told over a certain period with no publishing gaps.
Then what is it? Because it doesn't seem to be a narrative either.
I wasn't aware that one had to meet a certain pace for their story to be deemed a narrative.
For fuck's sake, they're only seven strips in, calm down and let them tell the story.
I recently started feeling that like I don't weigh in with artists on what I feel about their work. I either don't want to be a jerk if I don't like it, or I don't feel like being yet another "everything you do is awesome" is helpful either. The cancelations of Blam Nights (which I enjoyed) made me feel like I should start voicing my opinions. I'm not telling anybody they are wrong about liking the strip. I just don't like it.
What are you, some kind of critic critic, Romanian? Trenches, 7 strips in, has been completely uninteresting and downright forgettable. Which is hugely disappointing to me. There's nothing to it. No substance whatsoever. It's not funny, it's not a story, it's just.....it's just there. It exists. But that's all it does, so far.
And I really don't buy the "We're early on!" excuse either. These aren't new comic writers. They're experienced guys who have been doing this over 10 years now. They should know what makes a compelling, interesting comic. So far, it hasn't been shown.
If the intro of a story is not very engaging, why would I keep reading it to hope it gets better? That's like the reverse of any story ever. Something common in video games "Keep playing it gets better." Why would I want to do that if I'm not enjoying it from the start?
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
What are you, some kind of critic critic, Romanian? Trenches, 7 strips in, has been completely uninteresting and downright forgettable. Which is hugely disappointing to me. There's nothing to it. No substance whatsoever. It's not funny, it's not a story, it's just.....it's just there. It exists. But that's all it does, so far.
And I really don't buy the "We're early on!" excuse either. These aren't new comic writers. They're experienced guys who have been doing this over 10 years now. They should know what makes a compelling, interesting comic. So far, it hasn't been shown.
I think this is the biggest thing. This is a comic from Penny Arcade and PvP. They're held to higher expectations. (Even though PvP hasn't been funny in like three years).
Yeah its not like the Trenches is some new kid on the blocks first webcomic. I'm mainly dissapointed this is their big second comic, when they've had awesome ideas in, Automata, Over Easy, the look outs, CTS. This is dilbert light.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I don't understand the assertions that the comic isn't a narrative or telling a story. So far we've met the protagonist, gotten an idea of his life circumstances, found out what his immediate goal is (getting a job), and seen him make a couple of attempts at achieving his goal. Now we're starting to meet supporting cast members and will probably transition to the setting where the rest of the story will take place. Seems like a narrative to me. I can understand the pace being too plodding for some people, but a story developing too slowly is a different thing from saying there is no story at all, which is just nonsensical and disingenuous.
The comic is obviously a narrative. Anyone ascertaining otherwise either doesn't know what a narrative is or is being petulant with semantics.
It isn't that great yet, but I'm seeing a lot more of Scott Kurtz in this storyline than Mike and Jerry. I expect I'll keep up with the comic until either I get completely bored of it and in all likelyhood, once the plot is set one four-panel-comic at a time it'll begin being funny. If this is a project the webcomics supergroup of PA/PvP has decided to spend their time on then I'm sure it'll get good in time. For now it's just setting up a premise.
I fully expect the humor to bank more off the characters (once they're established) than the topical humor of Penny-Arcade.
Also, it's totally fine if you don't like it so-far. I can definitely see why you wouldn't.
That is the beauty of RSS. Something has to be excreable before I bother to stop following it. Since it's only at boring right now, it has dozens if not scores of steps to slip before I give up on it.
Yeah its not like the Trenches is some new kid on the blocks first webcomic. I'm mainly dissapointed this is their big second comic, when they've had awesome ideas in, Automata, Over Easy, the look outs, CTS. This is dilbert light.
Dilbert light is probably the best descriptor.
What is this I don't even.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
maybe I have been spoilt working in australia. Apparantly we have good unions(?), but I have never participated in one, but having their clout "around" sort of prevents the worse stuff from happening.
What are you, some kind of critic critic, Romanian? Trenches, 7 strips in, has been completely uninteresting and downright forgettable. Which is hugely disappointing to me. There's nothing to it. No substance whatsoever. It's not funny, it's not a story, it's just.....it's just there. It exists. But that's all it does, so far.
And I really don't buy the "We're early on!" excuse either. These aren't new comic writers. They're experienced guys who have been doing this over 10 years now. They should know what makes a compelling, interesting comic. So far, it hasn't been shown.
First off, critic critic is possibly one of the dumbest adjectives I've ever heard.
Now, any claim that the story has been uninteresting or forgettable is based completely on personal taste. It's also completely ridiculous, because the story hasn't started yet. Mike, Jerry and Scott are still establishing a base from which to build the rest of the comic. It's like dismissing the entirety of Star Wars because you didn't like the opening crawl. If you can't deal with that, then it sucks for you. But that doesn't give you license to come in and claim that the authors are somehow wrong; especially considering that it's their fucking story. So, yes, the "We're early on!" argument does make sense, if you'd bother to actually examine it, instead of rejecting it out of hand.
These aren't new comic writers. They're experienced guys who have been doing this over 10 years now.
I'm pretty sure the guys who have been doing this over 10 years now know a lot more about how to spin a narrative than some random guy on the Internet.
I don't understand the assertions that the comic isn't a narrative or telling a story. So far we've met the protagonist, gotten an idea of his life circumstances, found out what his immediate goal is (getting a job), and seen him make a couple of attempts at achieving his goal. Now we're starting to meet supporting cast members and will probably transition to the setting where the rest of the story will take place. Seems like a narrative to me. I can understand the pace being too plodding for some people, but a story developing too slowly is a different thing from saying there is no story at all, which is just nonsensical and disingenuous.
It's plodding because it is two updates a week multiplied by not much happening for each strip. Your four line description took three weeks to get through.
So yes, I ignore the comic and read the horror stories. I'll try catching up on the comic later and judge it then.
If the intro of a story is not very engaging, why would I keep reading it to hope it gets better? That's like the reverse of any story ever. Something common in video games "Keep playing it gets better." Why would I want to do that if I'm not enjoying it from the start?
Right, because the entire body of the work must be shit, if the first ten minutes don't capture my attention.
In that case, I take back everything nice I ever said about The Great Gatsby, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and half of Shakespeare's work.
Although, for some reason, I don't get the feeling you know a good story from a bad one.
Let me guess; your ideal movie starts with a lot of overblown exposition, builds to a climax in the first 30 minutes, and then burns out before it has any chance to make a lasting effect.
If the intro of a story is not very engaging, why would I keep reading it to hope it gets better? That's like the reverse of any story ever. Something common in video games "Keep playing it gets better." Why would I want to do that if I'm not enjoying it from the start?
Right, because the entire body of the work must be shit, if the first ten minutes don't capture my attention.
In that case, I take back everything nice I ever said about The Great Gatsby, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and half of Shakespeare's work.
Although, for some reason, I don't get the feeling you know a good story from a bad one.
Let me guess; your ideal movie starts with a lot of overblown exposition, builds to a climax in the first 30 minutes, and then burns out before it has any chance to make a lasting effect.
That on the mark?
Don't be a silly goose. If you are going to defend the unfunny slow-moving comic, you will have to do it with the benefit of hindsight (when it finally gets good) or on its current merit (which isn't much, quite frankly), not with unseen potential content or with personal insulting attacks on other people's tastes or exaggeration of the critic's opinion.
Besides, more than half of Shakespeare's work was written with the intent of a captive audience (they have your money, so you're staying for the show), and the vast majority of it is IMMEDIATELY gripping, from Macbeth (it starts with three mysterious witches in the woods) to Romeo and Juliet (the opening dialogue immediately establishes the setting).
The comic, so far, has not said anything of what it's like to be a tester. It's said a lot about sitting around in a lobby doing nothing.
I wish I could say I was surprised by the reaction Trenches is getting from a lot of people, but I'm not. While PA is obviously a great comic, its primarily joke-a-day-oriented format (where Tycho frequently pokes fun at the strip venturing into the dangerous uncharted territory of continuity in his newsposts when something so ambitious as a week-long series is undertaken) sort of conditions PA fans, I think, to expect instant gratification. I've noticed a similar impatient, dismissive attitude among posters here before when comics with a high degree of story and character development happened to have been brought up in old SE++ new comic threads or the catchall webcomic thread installments over there. Only a select few comics with an ongoing story and continuity find any approval.
Employees have rights, it is just that most of the time they are not aware of them. An employer isn't going to take the time to teach a new-hire that whistleblowing is protected by OSHA.
But they are required to show them the employee rights poster which must be hung in a "employee friendly" location. IE: it cant be in the bosses office or only in the ladies room on the inside of stall 3.
If the intro of a story is not very engaging, why would I keep reading it to hope it gets better? That's like the reverse of any story ever. Something common in video games "Keep playing it gets better." Why would I want to do that if I'm not enjoying it from the start?
Right, because the entire body of the work must be shit, if the first ten minutes don't capture my attention.
In that case, I take back everything nice I ever said about The Great Gatsby, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and half of Shakespeare's work.
Although, for some reason, I don't get the feeling you know a good story from a bad one.
Let me guess; your ideal movie starts with a lot of overblown exposition, builds to a climax in the first 30 minutes, and then burns out before it has any chance to make a lasting effect.
That on the mark?
Don't be a silly goose. If you are going to defend the unfunny slow-moving comic, you will have to do it with the benefit of hindsight (when it finally gets good) or on its current merit (which isn't much, quite frankly), not with unseen potential content or with personal insulting attacks on other people's tastes or exaggeration of the critic's opinion.
Besides, more than half of Shakespeare's work was written with the intent of a captive audience (they have your money, so you're staying for the show), and the vast majority of it is IMMEDIATELY gripping, from Macbeth (it starts with three mysterious witches in the woods) to Romeo and Juliet (the opening dialogue immediately establishes the setting).
The comic, so far, has not said anything of what it's like to be a tester. It's said a lot about sitting around in a lobby doing nothing.
Books and plays are a rather poor comparison as you have the whole thing available right from the start, so you don't have to wait weeks (or even months!) for them to "get better".
Comparing this to judging a tv show after seeing the first episode would be a better analogy in this case as you don't get all the content immediately so you can only judge based on what's currently available.
On a side note, the "it gets better" argument is typically a pretty poor one since any game/tv show/book/whatever that requires you to spend a decent amount of time slogging through to get to the parts that aren't bad is flawed at best (not saying that this applies to Trenches yet, but I've seen it tossed around for pieces of entertainment with fairly long time commitments)
Anyhow I'm rather ambivalent on Trenches so far but I'm down with seeing where it goes. Mostly just wanted to say a few things about critique.
Employees have rights, it is just that most of the time they are not aware of them. An employer isn't going to take the time to teach a new-hire that whistleblowing is protected by OSHA.
But they are required to show them the employee rights poster which must be hung in a "employee friendly" location. IE: it cant be in the bosses office or only in the ladies room on the inside of stall 3.
The average hourly employee pays about as much attention to those posters as the average software user does to the EULA they scrolled through to click "I agree" at the bottom.
Gaslight on
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faitsa panda eating cakeseattleRegistered Userregular
why do people keep saying this isn't a 'joke a day' strip
I agree with the books being a poor comparison. Trenches is like reading a couple pages of a novel twice a week. If I'd had to read my favorite books at the pace of Trenches, it would have been miserable.
Another difference between this and a TV show of book is the near zero cost. Not counting the horror stories (which seem to have separate and near 100% approval), it takes mere seconds to read each strip. If you make $100K a year, using 40 hour weeks and 1 minute to read the strip, that is $0.83 of your time. So hardly a big personal expense even compared to cheap book.
It also helps nothing that there is no information coming from the creators. Considering the dearth of information they have put out on it, almost everything people are saying about the nature of the comic is conjecture. Maybe I missed the episode where they said it wasn't trying to be funny each time. But each strip certainly has the structure of a joke-a-day. There simply appears to be a lot of faith in the creators being used to mold a supposition that supports the belief that the stip is good. But the only evidence is that the crafters know how to make comics, not the actual comic being discussed. I really hope I'm not the first person to point out a certain parallel.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
As Labor Day comes up upon us let us remember how much companies and REAL AMERICANS hate laborers and their dirty unions.
If the intro of a story is not very engaging, why would I keep reading it to hope it gets better? That's like the reverse of any story ever. Something common in video games "Keep playing it gets better." Why would I want to do that if I'm not enjoying it from the start?
Right, because the entire body of the work must be shit, if the first ten minutes don't capture my attention.
In that case, I take back everything nice I ever said about The Great Gatsby, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and half of Shakespeare's work.
Although, for some reason, I don't get the feeling you know a good story from a bad one.
Let me guess; your ideal movie starts with a lot of overblown exposition, builds to a climax in the first 30 minutes, and then burns out before it has any chance to make a lasting effect.
That on the mark?
I think you should keep reading my posts, they get better.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Nice. You have the full trucks, or the little power lifters?
I was a certified class 1-5 trainer years ago, so at WF I just grabbed one of the power lifters to move a pallet one day. Everyone was freaking out, but I was fine until I knocked the cooler door off its hinges.
I would probably fall into the category of "so far not terribly interested." Here's my reasoning, largely for Romanian My Escutcheon.
All really great stories have a structure, and most have a three act structure. If you want, you can go read bout Syd Field droning on about it in about a billion different books. The basic idea behind this is that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though not necessarily in that order. All stories ultimately do have to start somewhere, though, and that is in Act I. It might not be the beginning of the story, but it's where the reader/viewer/experiencer (<- that's not a word) starts experiencing the narrative.
Act I is the set-up - this establishes the protagonist and their mundane world. It finishes up with Plot Point I which drags/throws the story into Act II, normally with some sort of key or inciting incident. In our case, Isaac gets fired is the inciting incident so far as I can tell. The key incident is him getting a gig at this new place, which hasn't happened yet. Then Act II involves conflict - Isaac will settle in to the new place, butt heads with other testers, and generally vie for the opportunity to stay employed and relevant. That's a guess, mind you, but I can't figure out any conflict that would arise from this set up that would be worthy of the narrative aside from that.
Somewhere, therein Act II, we should find out what Isaac's dramatic need is. Right now, all we know is what he wants to do - get and hold a job. But we don't know why he needs to do that. We don't know what compels him into this industry. Does he have ultimate goals of being a designer? Does he want to work on his own games independently someday, and, if so, why's he still in this scenario? Does he just love him some test? There's a lot of questions unanswered about Isaac that will be the subtext of the dramatic arc of Act II, as Isaac is our subject. What action there will be, I haven't a clue and that's where I'm getting a little nervous.
If we accept that Trenches is a narrative with a comedic aspect, we have to start seeing this evolve. I would actually argue that the pace is a huge issue. If you want to compare it structurally to Shakespeare*, we're nearly seven scenes in and Romeo wouldn't have read the invitation to the Capulet party yet. Mind you, Romeo read the invitation in Act I, scene two. Comics structure is somewhat more ambiguous as to what constitutes a scene, but if we want to do this as a script, I've spotted possibly six scenes so far. Maybe one is a "series of shots" / montage, but at its core, a lot of panels have been used to not quite introduce the inciting incident or the key incident.
Alternative examples from comics as a medium: Pride of Baghdad takes about 7 pages to perform the set-up. Jets fly over the zoo. The animals are freaking out. The male lion, Zill, sees the planes, and tries to ignore it. Everything that we need for plot point 1 is set up within 6 pages or about 12 panels. The first big plot point occurs shortly thereafter with the zookeepers tossing a dead donkey to the lions and then the explosion which kicks off Act II. That's only 20-some-odd pages (and, because of the difference in format, amounts to little more than 30-some-odd panels).
Now, 12 panels of the Trenches would have been four comics. How far are we? Seven comics. That's 21 panels (it's actually 22, because there was a four-banger in there), and no decisive end of Act I is in sight. The door was closed on Tuesday, and they can't re-open it within three comics without it seeming like a meaningless gesture to close it. So it seems likely that that we'll get to 30-some-odd panels without any conflict between the employees introduced. Well, hell, there's a good chance of that, because our core cast isn't even introduced yet.
By those 12 panels of Pride of Baghdad, Vaughan had introduced all four main characters and was well on his way to establishing subtext for their relationship. I'm not saying I want Brian K. Vaughan to write The Trenches, or that he's Holier Than God when it comes to comics scripting. What I am saying is that, compared to the immediacy of Penny-Arcade and like-minded comics, The Trenches is incredibly slow. I've not written it off, but I'm also not super impressed by what I've seen of Act I.
On the other hand, the "Season" archetype makes perfect sense for them, because that gives them a definitive style in which to create their dramatic structure. Comics 1 - 12 (just a guess) can comprise "Act I" of Season 1, and the bulk of Season 1 would be handled by Act II (as Act II is the work horse of this particular structural model), and Act III will handle resolution and introducing the hook for Season 2. That's how TV does it, that's how long story arcs in long-form comics do it (see: everything Geoff Johns has done with Green Lantern ever). It's a successful model, and, for a narrative comic like this, I think it's probably the right one.
I personally wouldn't have opted for so much time in Act I. I would have punched my way through character introductions, but that's the way I go. I want everybody in the room and present so I can find out who they are as fast as possible. That's not the angle SMJ have taken. (collectively, I believe the team of Scott, Mike, and Jerry should be heretofore be known as SMJ, "Smuhj" / smʌdʒ)
*(which I know for a fact someone is going to say 'oh, that's a five-act structure, so you're wrong!' but I'm not. It still follows the exact same progression, you've just been fooled by the titles at the top of the page. The Acts are basically commercial breaks / time for the rioting plebs to pee and drink their sorrows away a little more. The Acts in stage drama are largely organizational. In the Syd Field mindset, Act II of any Shakespeare play would be nearish the middle of Act II until the endish of Act IV.)
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no we're talking the right not to have your contract terminated on a fucking whim.
Most U.S. workers do not have contracts, under the doctrine of "at-will employment."
There are exceptions, such as being a member of a union, but since I've never heard of a software developer or tester union then that doesn't really apply to this discussion.
In addition there are certain cases that constitute wrongful termination regardless of whether or not you have a contract. Prominent examples include when an employee is fired because of discrimination or (the one that's important here) "for refusing to commit illegal acts."
so does every form of running an economy. Whoever can come out on top, will. It's not like any other form somehow magically makes people not greedy fucks.
you won't get your job back, but it doesn't cost you anything to report a bad employer.
I recommend that anyone who finds themselves in a situation where their bosses are making them do things they shouldn't be doing should do alittle research and figure out a way to go over their heads and make a complaint, either to corporate or to the regulatory agency that is in charge of that sort of work. We don't live in a hopeless, depressing, Orwellian society, that's just what the people who are violating your rights want you to believe so you won't tell the authorities and apparently it works on a lot of people.
It's like the employment equivalent of "Don't tell anyone I sexually-assaulted you or everyone will think you're a slut."
Well, that one IS true.
hahaha, good one!
I wasn't aware that one had to meet a certain pace for their story to be deemed a narrative.
For fuck's sake, they're only seven strips in, calm down and let them tell the story.
It would just be nice if people had something interesting to say about why they dislike it, beyond the incessant whining about the pace.
Or, better yet, if they would stop judging the comic's quality based on the content of less than a dozen strips.
And I really don't buy the "We're early on!" excuse either. These aren't new comic writers. They're experienced guys who have been doing this over 10 years now. They should know what makes a compelling, interesting comic. So far, it hasn't been shown.
pleasepaypreacher.net
If the pace is too slow, I'd expect a lot of people to complain about that.
If it's not okay to say you dislike like it yet, conversely it should currently be wrong to say you like it.
I think this is the biggest thing. This is a comic from Penny Arcade and PvP. They're held to higher expectations. (Even though PvP hasn't been funny in like three years).
pleasepaypreacher.net
It isn't that great yet, but I'm seeing a lot more of Scott Kurtz in this storyline than Mike and Jerry. I expect I'll keep up with the comic until either I get completely bored of it and in all likelyhood, once the plot is set one four-panel-comic at a time it'll begin being funny. If this is a project the webcomics supergroup of PA/PvP has decided to spend their time on then I'm sure it'll get good in time. For now it's just setting up a premise.
I fully expect the humor to bank more off the characters (once they're established) than the topical humor of Penny-Arcade.
Also, it's totally fine if you don't like it so-far. I can definitely see why you wouldn't.
Dilbert light is probably the best descriptor.
You haven't read about Team Bondi obviously.
First off, critic critic is possibly one of the dumbest adjectives I've ever heard.
Now, any claim that the story has been uninteresting or forgettable is based completely on personal taste. It's also completely ridiculous, because the story hasn't started yet. Mike, Jerry and Scott are still establishing a base from which to build the rest of the comic. It's like dismissing the entirety of Star Wars because you didn't like the opening crawl. If you can't deal with that, then it sucks for you. But that doesn't give you license to come in and claim that the authors are somehow wrong; especially considering that it's their fucking story. So, yes, the "We're early on!" argument does make sense, if you'd bother to actually examine it, instead of rejecting it out of hand.
Besides...
I'm pretty sure the guys who have been doing this over 10 years now know a lot more about how to spin a narrative than some random guy on the Internet.
It's plodding because it is two updates a week multiplied by not much happening for each strip. Your four line description took three weeks to get through.
So yes, I ignore the comic and read the horror stories. I'll try catching up on the comic later and judge it then.
Right, because the entire body of the work must be shit, if the first ten minutes don't capture my attention.
In that case, I take back everything nice I ever said about The Great Gatsby, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and half of Shakespeare's work.
Although, for some reason, I don't get the feeling you know a good story from a bad one.
Let me guess; your ideal movie starts with a lot of overblown exposition, builds to a climax in the first 30 minutes, and then burns out before it has any chance to make a lasting effect.
That on the mark?
You knew what I was, Darkewolfe.
You said I was all you could ever need. "All those other descriptors are so specific," you said.
I asked you if this thing between us was just some experimental phase, or if you were really ready to commit to equivocation. You said you were.
You promised.
This is how I find out ambiguity isn't your "thing" anymore? That now you're some kind of specificity... person?
On the god damned internet, Darkewolfe?
Besides, more than half of Shakespeare's work was written with the intent of a captive audience (they have your money, so you're staying for the show), and the vast majority of it is IMMEDIATELY gripping, from Macbeth (it starts with three mysterious witches in the woods) to Romeo and Juliet (the opening dialogue immediately establishes the setting).
The comic, so far, has not said anything of what it's like to be a tester. It's said a lot about sitting around in a lobby doing nothing.
But they are required to show them the employee rights poster which must be hung in a "employee friendly" location. IE: it cant be in the bosses office or only in the ladies room on the inside of stall 3.
Books and plays are a rather poor comparison as you have the whole thing available right from the start, so you don't have to wait weeks (or even months!) for them to "get better".
Comparing this to judging a tv show after seeing the first episode would be a better analogy in this case as you don't get all the content immediately so you can only judge based on what's currently available.
On a side note, the "it gets better" argument is typically a pretty poor one since any game/tv show/book/whatever that requires you to spend a decent amount of time slogging through to get to the parts that aren't bad is flawed at best (not saying that this applies to Trenches yet, but I've seen it tossed around for pieces of entertainment with fairly long time commitments)
Anyhow I'm rather ambivalent on Trenches so far but I'm down with seeing where it goes. Mostly just wanted to say a few things about critique.
The average hourly employee pays about as much attention to those posters as the average software user does to the EULA they scrolled through to click "I agree" at the bottom.
there has been at least one joke each day
they just haven't been that funny
Another difference between this and a TV show of book is the near zero cost. Not counting the horror stories (which seem to have separate and near 100% approval), it takes mere seconds to read each strip. If you make $100K a year, using 40 hour weeks and 1 minute to read the strip, that is $0.83 of your time. So hardly a big personal expense even compared to cheap book.
It also helps nothing that there is no information coming from the creators. Considering the dearth of information they have put out on it, almost everything people are saying about the nature of the comic is conjecture. Maybe I missed the episode where they said it wasn't trying to be funny each time. But each strip certainly has the structure of a joke-a-day. There simply appears to be a lot of faith in the creators being used to mold a supposition that supports the belief that the stip is good. But the only evidence is that the crafters know how to make comics, not the actual comic being discussed. I really hope I'm not the first person to point out a certain parallel.
I think you should keep reading my posts, they get better.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Okay, Michael Scott.
All really great stories have a structure, and most have a three act structure. If you want, you can go read bout Syd Field droning on about it in about a billion different books. The basic idea behind this is that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though not necessarily in that order. All stories ultimately do have to start somewhere, though, and that is in Act I. It might not be the beginning of the story, but it's where the reader/viewer/experiencer (<- that's not a word) starts experiencing the narrative.
Act I is the set-up - this establishes the protagonist and their mundane world. It finishes up with Plot Point I which drags/throws the story into Act II, normally with some sort of key or inciting incident. In our case, Isaac gets fired is the inciting incident so far as I can tell. The key incident is him getting a gig at this new place, which hasn't happened yet. Then Act II involves conflict - Isaac will settle in to the new place, butt heads with other testers, and generally vie for the opportunity to stay employed and relevant. That's a guess, mind you, but I can't figure out any conflict that would arise from this set up that would be worthy of the narrative aside from that.
Somewhere, therein Act II, we should find out what Isaac's dramatic need is. Right now, all we know is what he wants to do - get and hold a job. But we don't know why he needs to do that. We don't know what compels him into this industry. Does he have ultimate goals of being a designer? Does he want to work on his own games independently someday, and, if so, why's he still in this scenario? Does he just love him some test? There's a lot of questions unanswered about Isaac that will be the subtext of the dramatic arc of Act II, as Isaac is our subject. What action there will be, I haven't a clue and that's where I'm getting a little nervous.
If we accept that Trenches is a narrative with a comedic aspect, we have to start seeing this evolve. I would actually argue that the pace is a huge issue. If you want to compare it structurally to Shakespeare*, we're nearly seven scenes in and Romeo wouldn't have read the invitation to the Capulet party yet. Mind you, Romeo read the invitation in Act I, scene two. Comics structure is somewhat more ambiguous as to what constitutes a scene, but if we want to do this as a script, I've spotted possibly six scenes so far. Maybe one is a "series of shots" / montage, but at its core, a lot of panels have been used to not quite introduce the inciting incident or the key incident.
Alternative examples from comics as a medium: Pride of Baghdad takes about 7 pages to perform the set-up. Jets fly over the zoo. The animals are freaking out. The male lion, Zill, sees the planes, and tries to ignore it. Everything that we need for plot point 1 is set up within 6 pages or about 12 panels. The first big plot point occurs shortly thereafter with the zookeepers tossing a dead donkey to the lions and then the explosion which kicks off Act II. That's only 20-some-odd pages (and, because of the difference in format, amounts to little more than 30-some-odd panels).
Now, 12 panels of the Trenches would have been four comics. How far are we? Seven comics. That's 21 panels (it's actually 22, because there was a four-banger in there), and no decisive end of Act I is in sight. The door was closed on Tuesday, and they can't re-open it within three comics without it seeming like a meaningless gesture to close it. So it seems likely that that we'll get to 30-some-odd panels without any conflict between the employees introduced. Well, hell, there's a good chance of that, because our core cast isn't even introduced yet.
By those 12 panels of Pride of Baghdad, Vaughan had introduced all four main characters and was well on his way to establishing subtext for their relationship. I'm not saying I want Brian K. Vaughan to write The Trenches, or that he's Holier Than God when it comes to comics scripting. What I am saying is that, compared to the immediacy of Penny-Arcade and like-minded comics, The Trenches is incredibly slow. I've not written it off, but I'm also not super impressed by what I've seen of Act I.
On the other hand, the "Season" archetype makes perfect sense for them, because that gives them a definitive style in which to create their dramatic structure. Comics 1 - 12 (just a guess) can comprise "Act I" of Season 1, and the bulk of Season 1 would be handled by Act II (as Act II is the work horse of this particular structural model), and Act III will handle resolution and introducing the hook for Season 2. That's how TV does it, that's how long story arcs in long-form comics do it (see: everything Geoff Johns has done with Green Lantern ever). It's a successful model, and, for a narrative comic like this, I think it's probably the right one.
I personally wouldn't have opted for so much time in Act I. I would have punched my way through character introductions, but that's the way I go. I want everybody in the room and present so I can find out who they are as fast as possible. That's not the angle SMJ have taken. (collectively, I believe the team of Scott, Mike, and Jerry should be heretofore be known as SMJ, "Smuhj" / smʌdʒ)
*(which I know for a fact someone is going to say 'oh, that's a five-act structure, so you're wrong!' but I'm not. It still follows the exact same progression, you've just been fooled by the titles at the top of the page. The Acts are basically commercial breaks / time for the rioting plebs to pee and drink their sorrows away a little more. The Acts in stage drama are largely organizational. In the Syd Field mindset, Act II of any Shakespeare play would be nearish the middle of Act II until the endish of Act IV.)