That shouldn’t really surprise anyone. 4chan has long since stopped being the great unknown of the internet. It’s one of the largest ‘community’ sites in existence, and since it has a Comics and Cartoons board, that by extension makes /co/ simply one of the places you have to know about if you’re at all interested in what’s happening in comics today – reactions, issues, what’s popular and what’s not.
Of course, anything even remotely associated with 4chan gets a bit of a rep these days. Creators poo-poo it, news sites paint it as the refuge of Internet Hate Machines and paedophiles, assuming that since /b/ is part of 4chan, all of 4chan must be /b/ (and for the record, no, I’ve never gone to /b/ ) But personally, I think it’s a fantastic resource. All these people, all these ideas. It’s a giant melting pot of piss and fire, where everyone can just throw whatever they feel like saying out there because even if it’s hated and rejected, it was Anonymous and quickly disappears underneath the next wave of botPREG and ’90s threads. Quite often to kick-start a blog post, I’ll pop over to the ‘chans and ask a question.
Being Anonymous can be a confronting thing for an aspiring creator. We like to think that we, and we alone, own our ideas. That what is ours is sacred and integral to who we are creatively, and to not only post them up on a public form, but also unattributed and anonymous, is paramount to saying “Here, I have this idea. Please take it from me. I worked hard on it so that other people could take credit for it.” Of course, one could always be a tripfag tripfriend, and validate your existence externally, but even then attribution towards an idea only lasts as long as the subject is popular.
Of course, it’s all very po-mo to start telling people that they can’t actually own an idea, nor have any original ideas of their own in the first place. And nor am I saying that /co/ is the perfect place to sound ideas and concepts off. But the next time you’re doing some research, or just trying to give an idea legs, don’t disregard it entirely. There are genuinely some decent and intelligent people on /co/, just like there are on any community site on the internet. The real trick is filtering out the idiots.
I think we can all safely blame the ’90s – and associated individuals – for making ‘he shoots bullets out of a gun’ as a viable super-power in today’s comics. I’m with Stan Lee on this one – there are so many more interesting things to shoot, why be limited to something as mundane and earthy as bullets for crying out loud? But hand-in-hand with the general blah-ness of bullets comes the fact that an undeniably large number of readers get massive boners for cool-looking guns. So, love it, loathe it, or leave it – bullets are right up there with firing lightning and punches.
The most practical of solutions is often the wussiest.
But that doesn’t mean at least some bullets can be cool, right? So I’m going to troll around the internet and find some cool, comic-book science bullets. I mean, if commonly used bullets can come in plastic, rubber, and wax varieties, god knows what some mad scientist has cooked up. But first, please note that I am not a gun nut. If it comes out of a metal pole you point at bad people to make them go away, it’s bullet enough for me.
Electric bullets have always been a favourite of mine. Hell, they even sound awesome. Electric bullets? Who comes up with this shit? Most of them work according to the piezoelectric effect, which basically boils down to if you squeeze something hard and fast enough, it generates a high voltage charge, which is basically how these bullets work – smack the right kind of stuff into you hard and fast, stunning you without killing you. It’s a non-lethal round (as non-lethal as shooting someone with electric bullets sounds like it could be, anyway) although I’m sure you would comic-science it up a few thousand amps and make it definitively more lethal. Even comes in shotgun form for your convenience.
Stop, or I'll shoot tiny fluorescent satellites!
On the subject of non-lethal ammunition – or ‘less lethal’ as they are called now, as they finally clued to the fact that hey shooting anything at a person really fast could do some damage you think? – there exists all sorts of interesting applications. Everything from stink rounds to sticky foam could potentially be deployed on a personal level. Blister agents could be delivered in much the same method. Sonic and light weapons, although treading water into laser territory, are also possible in the not-to-distant future. And, at the end of the day, you could always just microwave the bastards.
Now, I’m sure we’ve all heard of Dragon’s Breath at some point of our lives. It’s pretty much the be-all and end-all for people who say to themselves “You know what? I wish my shotgun were more like a flamethrower. I really want to set the guys in front of me on fire… those jerks.” Of course, the technology used to create them isn’t that complicated – basically it’s a shell made of burning stuff. So why not apply the principle to other firearms? Whilst the prospect of a flame-throwing sniper rifle may fall flat to with some, miniaturising the technology to work in a handgun or similar could lead to one very surprising – and one very literal – up-close fire fight.
Speaking of shotgun rounds, there’s all sorts of interesting prospects, due to the short-range but high-volume nature of the shells. From SCMITR ammo – basically flechette or fragmentation rounds, alibet they shoot tiny metal arrows – to the limb-lopping nature of Bolo shells. May I suggest shooting someone with FLAVOUR? You never know when that one will come in handy.
Some fine upstanding shellheads.
Glass bullets are an interesting one. There are reports of the Germans using them in WW1, but these days not-so much. Most people tend to agree that glass lacks the strength and mass needed to stay together long enough to reach most targets, and even then, are likely to shatter on impact without doing much damage. But what if that’s what you want? If you start to look at a bullet like it was a delivery mechanism, and not the only means of injuring a target, then perhaps the possibilities of using glass bullets opens up a bit. Look at it as essentially firing test-tubes at the target – sure, the glass won’t do much, but just imagine what you could put on the inside of the tube.
Don’t forget that bullets can come in caseless and silent variations (including ones that just make the target silent, so long as they don’t snore) As well as wooden, but the effectiveness of those are rather limited, as is understandable by effectively being nothing more fancy than throwing twigs at the other guy really fast. Silver bullets are staples of many supernatural-themed stories, and it wouldn’t be an article about strange ammunition without mentioning magic and ice bullets. Hell, you aren’t even limited to cylindrical bullets these days, having the tround at your disposal.
Gyrojets are an interesting aside to ‘normal’ ammunition as they straddle the fine line between personal firearm and personal rocket-launcher. Because that’s essentially what they are – gyrojets fire rockets rather than bullets, with all that implies.
Like your bullets bigger and electronic? Try these anti-radio artillery rounds. Starshel, as they are known, are used by the Bulgarian military, and are basically signal-jamming antenna delivered by cannon. You fire them, they land, and BAM – said antenna pops out of it and gives you about an hours worth of disrupted communications within a 700m radius. The case for miniaturising these is small (do ho ho ho) but it’s an interesting technology to consider.
For those that remember them, the Adeptus Arbites from Warhammer 40k – aka the Judges from 2000AD – had the gimmick of ‘intelligent’ shotgun shells that, once fired, would correct their course and steer into the optimal position to hit their targets. Sounds far-fetched? Well, the technology is already here. Cue screams and Skynet, people. The weapons are alive.
Sure, bullets may not be the most interesting things at first glance – remember we’re talking about a world where arrows, pieces of thrown bone and punch particles from your eyes are a effective crime-fighting solution – but if you dig just below the surface, you can find all sorts of exotic tools to place at your vigilante’s fingers.
Posting this from Windows Live Writer. Figuring it’d be easier to use this. You know what I’d love? If there was some way to post directly to WordPress from Google Docs. That’d just be ace.
Picture unrelated. Although that’s the closest we got to an All-Star Wonder Woman. Also, that’d be aces.
I know that seems like a strange thing to say. I discussed in an earlier post about how I don’t like to listen to music when I’m creating, as I feel that it messes with the natural beats and rhythms of the work you’re creating, but having elevated these properties so high, why not create a musical out of them?
How would a musical on paper work, anyway? Music is more than just rhymes over time to a pattern. Each panel would have to be arranged to accommodate a certain number of beats and syllables. Pacing would be a real bitch, because everybody reads at a different pace. Even things like body language would have to be altered so there’s a clear line of movement and action from panel to panel. And of course no matter how talented you are, you’re always going to stumble at the fact that no matter how well written or recognisable, the reader still won’t be able to actually hear any music outside of their own head (and as soon as you ask people to think about something, it all starts coming down around you)
With the recent rise of the motion comic – or at least the established publishers finally cluing to the digital phenomenon – we have the curious rise of comics that have built-in soundtracks (and sound effects) These allow the writer – or perhaps a specialised comic composer? – to place measured and deliberate music and sounds in their comics. Of course, this might be a little too rigid for some creators. Some of the intrigue in the creation of a ‘silent’ music comic (the first method) is that the music becomes infinitely more personal and intimate than going “This is what it sounds like. Exactly.” A silent musical comic could become somewhat of a ‘cover comic’ phenomenon – where the creators are almost daring the readers to develop and create their own interpretations of the song presented. It’s not quite public domain, but it’s encouraging the audience to personalise and re-interpret the work to best suit their own tastes and ideas.
Of course, if I search hard enough, I’m sure I’ll come across some rap comics.
