zole.org

Christian Finnegan observed that how you play Monopoly says a lot about how you handle adult life.

Six levels into playing World of Goo on the Wii, I’m noticing something similar. World of Goo challenges you to get a bunch of goo-ball dudes from point A to point B by fashioning some of them into bridges, towers, and so forth. As you build structures with the balls, they sag and sway and tip over as if they were actually made of semi-solid goo. It’s very cool.

The problem is that I never took high school physics. The physical world in general isn’t my forte; that’s why I got into video games in the first place. When I was a kid my dad pointed out to me that triangles are the strongest shape, which is true (albeit not really useful when you’re building Legos), but that’s about all the knowledge I can call upon to make these goo structures.

So I build my tower, but it starts to sway, so I shore up the base. I don’t want to waste the balls, since you get scored based on how many you have left over after you build your structure. This leads me to compromise the foundation, which doesn’t become clear until the tower’s tall enough that it’s really starting to tip over. I scramble to prop it up, but it’s too late, and pretty soon I have a U-shaped comb-over tower. Good thing the goo is flexible, or it’d be a disgusting scene.

On my next attempt I build slowly, making sure there’s plenty of support at the base, and being careful to maintain the tower’s balance as it goes up. I finally get it high enough to reach the series of tubes that the balls want to get to for whatever reason, but there are none of them left to climb the tower — they’re all in it.

And that’s where things start to feel like a metaphor. If I take a naive approach, everything comes crashing down before I get anywhere. If I slow down and really think about the problem, I still don’t get anywhere, and I waste more time and resources along the way.

World of Goo is a fun game, but try not to take it personally. At least with Monopoly I end up owning some property.

• Stars
• Seether
• Peaches
• Mother Mother

Back when I was a little bolder, and perhaps a little less ashamed to be a blubbering fan, I used to email people whose Internet work I enjoyed and pimp out my little comic. Here are some of the responses I found while I was recovering some of my old mail archives. Hopefully these people won’t mind the violation of their privacy, but I wanted to boast and didn’t feel like I could wait until after I die.

Dorothy Gambrell of Cat and Girl

I used to like to ask people how they drew their comic, as if I could somehow relate. Years later Dorothy and I were interviewed in the same book, but she’s still more talented than ten of me.

Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 17:23:49 -0400 (EDT)
To: Zole
From: Dorothy Gambrell
Subject: Re: That comic you draw

oh, well thanks. i had no idea i was still in the planetcartoonist list, actually.

i draw with the olde-timey (and time-consuming) pencil, pen, eraser, white-out method. After I scan it in I clean it up a bit, and the word bubbles/panels/greys are all done in photoshop.

so, yeah. glad you like it. especially as you’re a fellow member of the burgeoning marginalized interweb cartoonist association.

dorothy

Matt Groening’s assistant

From what I’ve heard Matt goes to Comic-Con and regularly buys books from up-and-coming talent, so maybe I should have aimed higher. But I couldn’t afford to go to San Diego.

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 21:48:13 -0800
To: Zole
From: Sondra Gatewood
Subject: Re:

Hi Michael-

Thanks for your interest in Life in Hell.

And yes, sadly, the last Life in Hell book published was The Huge Book.

More sadly, there is no Official Life in Hell website as of this moment. I have been nagging Mr. G. for several years to let me get one going, but we are at an impasse — if we do one Matt wants it to be spectacular (which means expensive.) I’m willing to settle for less just to have one.

And there you have it.

I’m trying to put some ideas together for the next book — so there is nothing in the works as of this moment.

Thank you for your interest in Life in Hell.

–
Sondra Gatewood
Executive Hellcat and Proud Peacenik
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.” - Proust

Tycho of Penny Arcade

Some early validation, on this strip.

Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:51:50 -0700
To: “Zole”
From: “(CW)Tycho Brahe”
Subject: Re: That Linux craziness!

your comic for today is a god damned riot.

This is who they got to play Chun Li in the new Street Fighter movie? I don’t know. I’m not really pulling a Chun Li vibe here.

I complain too much about things that bug me, so in the interest of being described with an adjective other than “cantankerous”, I’m now going to talk about something I like.

Fat-free Fig Newtons! I’ve just discovered I love them. The fig part is nice, but what I really dig is the cake portion, which has just the right chewy, obviously-mass-produced texture.

I’m late to the Fig Newton party because the TV commercials that ran circa 1990, when I was an impressionable youth, were ridiculous. As I recall, they were all variations on the assertion that Fig Newtons are not cookies. And? Broccoli florettes aren’t cookies, either. That’s why I don’t like them.

I’m glad I decided to mention this, too, because in doing my thirty seconds of research I found out that Fig Newtons, like all good things, came from the Boston area. I always assumed there was an Isaac Newton connection, but nope, it’s named after Newton, Massachusetts, where I used to work.