"Suck it, shippers"?

[epershand]

So, today's Questionable Content. Did not make me ship Hannelore/Marigold any less. It just made me saw aww, how cute, they're in adorable denial. Even in that comic they had so much cute UST.

But I'm fascinated that Jeph Jacques felt the need to make the characters say "No we are not going to 'lez out'" and titled the comic "Suck it, shippers." Does cutting off a popular area of speculation really enhance the comic?

Ironically it came just a couple days after Henry Jenkin's fascinating post about trans-media storytelling and how it builds out a world for further speculation by fans.

That said, most good transmedia artists know that there are certain gaps which should not be filled if they want to maintain interest in the series as a whole. There are certainly reasons to create ambiguities and uncertanties. We may offer more clues through other media, but we certainly don't want to destroy the mystery which makes such characters and worlds compelling in the first place. Fans resent the addition of information simply to close down avenues for speculation -- take, for example, the closing chapter of the last Harry Potter novel which amounted to J.K. Rowling spraying her territory telling us who married who and what they named their children even though most of that information had limited narrative impact and simply felt like she was trying to foreclose certain strands of fan expansion. In some cases, authors are better off allowing fans to create their own narratives, since the community will generate multiple explanations, much as critics will offer multiple accounts of what motivates Hamlet or Travis Bickle to do what they do.

Jeph is one of the people I think has been really successful at transmedia storytelling, with separate, equally complex story arcs going on for the characters on his comic and on the twitter personas he's created for them.

But perhaps he is overly concerned about being the sole provider of all QC-related fiction? In most cases where there are twitter personas for characters in other media, it's fans larping, but Jacques has created his own, perhaps to forstall that.

This is, of course, all speculation, but I think that on the basis of this comic, I'm going to be a whole lot more critical of QC, in particular of Jeph's ways of relating to his fans of the transformative variety.

Comments

[love]

For what it's worth, that didn't feel like a "not lesbian" message, it felt like "oh god online boy gamers are so lame". ^_^;;;;

[epershand]

Yeah, precisely. Which is why it was odd that the title and the accompanying blog post said "ha! not lesbian!"

Because the comic didn't at all.

[love]

Damn. O_o

[epershand]

It was just such a weird read, because I was so charmed by the comic. And it... was not saying what he said it did.

I guess this just points out clearly what the shippers see in the relationship that he doesn't. Death of the Author much?

[love]

T_T Yeah.

And he did it to himself, too. *sad headshake*

[dmp]

Thanks for sharing the article; I found it fascinating.

I think Jeph isn't the only creator guilty of drawing down the lines concerning his characters. I think all creators, when they get to the point where they realize their characters are not their own anymore, but part of a larger media world that others participate in, either react in two ways: let their creations go free or try to hold onto them as tight as possible. And most would act as the former than the latter (I suspect, if any of my work gets big, I'd feel a bit protective too!)

Least he isn't going the way of Anne McCaffrey or Anne Rice. For now. ^-~

[epershand]

Re: the article, the coincidence in timing is kind of amazing because I probably would have been recommending it to people any way. Jenkins just posted part 3, too.

That makes a lot of sense. If you're carrying a set of characters around in your head for years on end, writing about their adventures day to day, it makes sense that it would be hard to accept that the people who read what you write are also carrying around the same set of characters in their heads, assigning their own motives and feelings.

But at the same time, that's what engaging readers ::means::. It's a sign of success that people are attributing romance to his characters even if he didn't intend it, because it means his readers are invested in what he's giving them.