Sugarshock is Joss Whedon’s free on-line comic. If you haven’t read it yet you should: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
It’s an extremely silly, story about a band called Sugarshock. Made up of Dandelion who hates vikings and is authorised to use deadly force by the secret government agency that she works for, Wade, who likes groupies, Robot Phil, who is a robot and L’Lihdra, who seems rather robotic until her absolute awesomeness is made clear. Their music is fantastic (well we only get the lyrics to one song, but they’re hilarious – and I really want to hear ‘God bites Man’ even if Dandelion is off key). After an emissary from another planet falls on their car they enter the international battle of the bands it just gets stranger and there are stoves, squirrels, and lathes in places you’d least expect them.
I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon; I can (and sometimes do) go on at great length about the metaphors, characters, and meaning of his work. Sugarshock isn’t one of those moments, this is more like Doppelgangland – he’s having heaps of fun, throwing in more and more silliness, and it’s joyful.
If that wasn’t enough the art doesn’t suck. There’s a woman in it whose body looks like it might actually move if you touched her. I didn’t even know that was possible in comic book form.
So go read it – it’s free and it’ll make your day better.
Woohoo!
There’s actually also a nice little recent bit on the artist’s blog about drawing Sugarshock, now that it’s over.
hey now, what’s with the hating on vikings? is that part supposed to be ironic?
i know we’ve done some bad things, but so has everybody else. and we’re not nearly as bad as those stinking saxons.
other than that, i too am a joss whedon fan, so i can cut him some slack i guess – maybe i just didn’t get the joke. maybe i’ll send him an email asking what’s the big idea.
Anyone else have problems loading part 3?
Loads fine for me… maybe you should try it again? It might have been temporarily down when you tried it.
It too k me a long time to load Dianne – but it got there eventually.
But maybe you’re a viking or a squirrel, and therefore it refused to load? Just a thought.
That did improve my day. Thank you.
what’s with the hating on vikings?
Probably something to do with their history of enstoving the caribou.
But maybe you’re a viking
By Odin, how could you make such an accusation?
actually, i read an article that said the caribou were better off enstoved than when they were roaming around the steppes on their own.
Well, sure. When they were enstoved, they were protected from Viking raiders. Out there on the tundra, they were sitting ducks. Er, caribou.
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I am utterly baffled.
This kind of reads like a late-night dare. “They’re a rock band! And she’s an alien princess! Who hates vikings! Plus, robots.”
Actually, it reminds me of the book with everything.
—
(UPDATE: It makes a lot more sense when the whole thing loads. I was only getting like 1/4 of each, which upped the randomness quotient by like 10x.)
Re: The Book With Everything
I’ve been putting together a rough plot outline, according to the criteria TNH posted:
It’s called Abraham Lincoln, Undead Fighter, and it concerns an alternate history in which the south won the Civil War thanks to an alien symbiote infecting the wealthy landowners and Confederate leadership, gifting them with both inhuman strength and a lust for human blood! Bolstering their abilities by feeding on the blood of their thousands of slaves, they steamroll the north, forcing the closeted gay president Abraham Lincoln to flee to Quebec along with Alain, a charismatic young racially mixed infantryman with a dark secret . Through their travels and battles against the roving bands of vampires sent to assassinate the true president, Lincoln finds himself falling in love with Alain, never suspecting the truth, that Alain is really Elaine, a young woman who fled the vampiric invasion disguised as a man!
Okay, so thus far we’ve got vampires, positive gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered characters, examinations of gender, gender identity, racial identity, and class, horror, alternate history, romance, and possibly hard SF depending on how we write about the parasites. We could easily do it as a graphic novel and it would be the first novel published by me, but I’m not a person of color or an active and well-liked member of SFWA, so I’ll need to ghost for someone who is. I figure if the bulk of the action takes place in Canada and the author I’m ghosting for is Canadian, we’ll have no problem getting it initially published as a paperback graphic novel in Canada, in French, and the simultaneous British and North American English-language editions are just a matter of logistics at that point. Maybe we should do it anime-style to ease the Japanese translation.
I’m still working on mythopoeic fantasy, libertarianism, the young adult stuff, and the poetry.
—Myca, hard at work.
Lincoln and Elaine, while on the run, can meet up with a disaffected Northern landowner of libertarian bent and have a Heinlein-style philosophical discussion-lecture about libertarianism. That takes care of young adult and libertarianism; for the fantasy and the poetry you’re on your own.
Ooh, for the mythopoeic fantasy, maybe we could work some kind of bit about Abraham Lincoln being the True President, fated to return and reunite his land in its time of greatest need.
Probably with Excalibur, cuz that’s awesome.
—Myca
…and wouldn’t the True President’s return (with Excalibur) be foretold in a prophecy…a prophecy written in the form of a POEM?
No, no – written on the inside of a ring in script that’s only visible when you throw it in a fire.
OMG.
John Wilkes Booth, Vampire Lord.
I am so writing this.
I have to admit to a vague compulsion to follow the development of Myca’s Book With Everything. That said, this:
John Wilkes Booth, Vampire Lord.
was the bit that hooked me. I will buy a copy of it.
Thanks for introducing this to me maia. I love the fact that the endlessly foreshadowed “use of deadly force” never pans out. Kinda reminds me of Frisky Dingo in that there’s an overarching plot but most plot points revel in absurdity.
(If you don’t know Frisky Dingo you can watch the new episode here. Liquid Anger!!!)