If you've known me very long you know that I, like every geek on Earth, am working on a role-playing system. I call it my garage game; I've been tinkering with it for years like an old hot rod.
It's with immoderate pride that I invite you into the garage to listen to me rev the engine. The system now has a name and, most importantly, a trademarked logo, thus making it legitimate.
I happen to be an artist of sorts. I know a lot of artists, musicians, writers, and generally artsy people. Every single one of them, to a man, and sometimes to a woman, shares the same belief about that mythic creature The Audience.
As an independent-minded iconoclast I've tried to show them the error of their belief. As an abrasive pedantic jerk I've failed to convince them. I'm always on the lookout for new ways to fail so I present to you the two irreconcilable theories of Audience.
Before an artistic work is created, before it is even conceived, its audience already exists, waiting to welcome it. The artist must know this audience, must dedicate themself to pleasing this audience. This requires long late nights of study and research, gleaning the audience's expectations, wooing them like a lover, carefully and fearfully crafting the work to the audience's exacting specifications. Trembling fingers, quivering bottom lip, for artistic death is the wage of failure. The audience might reject the work. The work might miss its audience, its one and only chance, gone like true love passing in the street without a glance, wondering as age dims its eyes and life's evening draws down its black curtain, wondering but never knowing if happiness and joy were once within its uncouth and thoughtless grasp, squandered now forever. Doom! Doom and despair! The rest is silence.
There is no audience before an artistic work is created. "Audience" implies experience and you can't experience something that doesn't exist. Once a work exists, its audience may begin to form. But this is no pre-existing entity waiting with bated breath for some nonexistent thing it doesn't even know about. True audience is the totality of those individuals who experience and enjoy a work. The artist shouldn't worry about pleasing their audience because the audience is everyone whom the artist pleases. The audience can't exist before a work exists so it can have no influence on the creation of the work. Different works by the same artist may please different people and so have different audiences. It's only after creating a work that the artist can look back and say, "Oh, so that's my audience."
This is also known as the correct theory.
Notice how elegantly it lets the artist off the hook. If you enjoy a work, that's great! If you hate it, well, you just aren't its audience. Clever, huh?
I found this while sorting some of my old sketchbooks and I present it here for steampulp fans, if anyone's still into that.
The Frogtomaton is some sort of mechanical monster, probably the result of a twisted genius meddling in God's domain in a misbegotten attempt to wreak unholy vengeance on a world that dared to call him mad, like they do. I imagine it travels like its namesake, but with more crushing. The hiss of building steam, the clank of gears, a shuddering rattle, then leap!
If I ever get my grubby mitts on one of those 3D fabricators a wind-up version of this thing will be released just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
The tech sloths have solved the login problem and are taking a well-deserved victory nap. Thank you for your patience.
I'm pleased to announce that I'm illustrating an upcoming product from UncleBear Media.
Bandit Run is a lighthearted adventure for a yet-to-be-announced major RPG title. It's a parody of the classic Smokey & the Bandit films with a Space Western flavor in which players take on the roles of loveable smugglers and rogues on the run from the corrupt authorities. I'm providing portraits of the various agonists. There's much more to it but the lawyer behind me is already clearing its throat.
Look for a Q4 2010 release. More details as they develop.
In the few weeks since I started this site I've already managed to earn some hate mail from people who think berating a cartoon sloth is a good use of their time. For this reason I've added a disclaimer link on the sidebar. For those of you too busy to move your mouse I present the following as a public service.
Xose's Opinions
Are my own. They aren't yours so you don't get to decide what they are. You don't even get to decide what they should be. I came by them honestly and I'm proud of them, but not so proud that I won't change them whenever it suits me, usually to win an argument. If, by some chance, they differ from yours, get over it. I don't want to hear about it. I don't need you to tell me I'm wrong: I already know.
Xose's Obligations
I owe you nothing. I'm not a journalist so I don't owe you objectivity. I'm a sloth so I don't owe you regular updates. The site is free and I don't even owe you that. I reserve the right to spray advertising all over my pages. I also reserve the right to disguise ads as content. And I double dog reserve the right to self-promote like a sonofagun. I don't owe you facts. I don't owe you consistency. If you become a member of my audience, don't expect me to change to please you or to refrain from changing to keep pleasing you.
Xose's Language
Is ridiculous. It's also ridiculous that people feel the need to point that out. I make inflammatory statements. I make sweeping generalizations. I'm blunt, rude, self-aggrandizing, and sarcastic. Everyone knows. You don't need to warn them. I love to antagonize people. Still, I've never antagonized anyone who didn't need it. If you feel antagonized, well...
Finally, an inspirational quote. In the words of Mohandas Gandhi,
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.
There. I think it finds the proper balance between conciliatory and intentionally offensive.
Inspired by Berin Kinsman's Wall of Awesome, I've made my own. These are a few of the people and other entities who've inspired me artistically or had a major impact in my life. Some are role models and some are the opposite: they're what I don't want to be. Some, in their various aspects, are both. I'm a complicated guy, just like everyone else.
Click to embiggen. Mouseover for names.
Working under the gaze of this semi-august assembly is, in itself, inspiring. They remind me what I can accomplish if I ever persevere for more than two hours in a row.
Not included at time of publication: Don Herbert, Douglas Adams, WG Grace, Dracula, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Vladimir Suvorov, Lu Xun.
Who would you put on your wall?
Logins are wonky at the moment, though registration works. The tech sloths have been notified and are inching toward a solution. Thank you for your patience.
This is for Berin Kinsman over at UncleBear Media, who has an aesthetic appreciation for the vanishing neighborhood dive bar.
Lead on, adventurer. Your quest awaits!
This is the Dragon's Lair Bar on old Route 66. They don't have a liquor license so it's more of a beer joint, and they book a lot of bands so it's not a quiet hangout, but look at that wall art. Savor the stairstep cinder block construction and the filled-in windows. It's a classic dive bar.
I'd like to drag my gaming group to the Dragon's Lair for a session. If they'd let us play, just for one evening, I almost wouldn't mind having my teeth kicked inevitably in afterward. The next time your party needs to meet in a tavern, send them there.
In my group's current Cyberpunk 2020 game I play "Dove". He's a Solo: a hired gun, assassin, and all-around non-pacifist. Physically, I based him on Brian Cox from Manhunter, then the whole group told me he looks like Scotty from Star Trek. Thanks, guys.
Dove is a product of the European corporate system. That means he's the best of the best, an alpha predator. If he can get close to his target, guns are clumsy and messy compared to what his hands can do. Give him a gun and it's one shot, one kill. Playing Dove, I've never had to reload during a firefight. He's a killing machine.
Now where's the fun in that? Read the rest of this entry »
