‘Allo Normalinauts! Sorry, I’m not sure what new moniker to give to our loyal, almost double digit readership here, but for now, I’m throwing Normalinaut into play to see how it fairs. Anyone else who has a better one they’d like to throw down, by all means, please do.

Ok, so we’ve been on a fairly serious bent it seems for the last couple of posts, and with good reason, as what’s currently going on with the Presidential race will certainly effect not just the US but peoples in any other country where our nation’s sticky tentacle pull any sort of influence. So thank you for indulging us (and specifically, the more activist minded Kilian).

Now I’m not saying that this trend of seriousness, when serious issues come up will not be coming back to the forefront here on the old Normality, but I did want to take a moment to touch on some of the not-quite-as-serious things that have also been going on. Not to bend this to a completely egotistical outing, but there it is anyway.

So firstly, for anyone interested, and I assume that we’re seeing some new faces around here from ye olde MyTrix community as well as from Trickster Online Revolution in general, let me take this opportunity to say thank you very, very, very much for all of the truly heart-string-strumming comments on the final Megalo Life that went up this last Monday on the official Trickster Online Revolution website. I meant every last word that typed out in the episode’s commentary and a lot more that would really not be appropriate or in anyway professional for me add as well. I really did love (and hate using the past-tense) working on the strip week after week, and it is my belief thatthe silly little comic outing worked great to promote not only the game, the company, the community and to shed some light on the fact that the game is brought to its loyal players by real people who are weird, wonderful, falable and overwhelmingly human. This was, to my thinking, something that really set us apart from other games and communities that are out there. Obviously, there are games with better graphics, mechanics, support or any other individual component that you could name, than TOR, but I always held the belief that the strength of the title despite the uphill climb against newer, flashier titles and the seemingly endless stream of even-newer-debuting titles, was the community and the way it could interact with the company behind the game.

For me, Megalo Life was one of our several pronged efforts to create and sustain that sort of unusual community/company involvement, and in the passing of the comic, I am bitterly happy to see that I wasn’t too far off the marks in my thoughts. As it turns out, the community does seem to have enjoyed the comic. I never made the thing to have people start clammering that it was the greatest thing to hit the internet since porn, or even the best webcomic out there. It really was, at its inception and at its core, a means for those of us behind TOR to pull back the OZ-like curtain and say, ‘No, it’s ok, there is a man back here, it’s cool,’ and then /wave in a friendly manner. For whatever reason, it was pulled, canceled or decidedly ended… however you want to put it, it doesn’t matter the ultimate outcome was/is the same: the series is no more.

But as I said, the one really positive thing to come out of all of this, especially as the title to this post might suggest, is that when the air started to clear and emotions could be stowed for a bit to re-asses the aftermath, there was nothing more evident than the fact that the fallout of the series has shown what I might humbly term as overwhelming community support for the strip and my efforts.

Again, for anyone interested, especially those from the TOR community, I am deeply thankful that you enjoyed the series, and I am very, truly moved by the outcries of support and even unhappiness to see it/me go. So thank you. I don’t know a better way to express it, than to just keep saying thank you over and over again.

I suppose that it was something of a pipe-dream to think that overwhelming outcries from the community would possibly spring some sort of rethinking to the cancellation decision as the evidence mounted to the fact that strip (like some of the other efforts, such as the now still missing GM Blog) actually did work. It did encourage interaction and involvement in the community and for the game itself. It was a useful effective tool to help set us and our collective efforts apart from the other, and oft-times behemoth-y-juggernaut-like competitors in the online gaming world who always have more money and resources to throw at things than we could dream of. Because of the players, the Tricksters, the community members and the readers of the Megalo Life series that returned week after week, and especially have been showing their support in the final installment, I think it is now assured that the points have been proven. There should no longer be a question as to whether or not it was effective, useful, and basically a good thing.

Doubt can no longer be attributed to the quantifying of the effort - and no question can reasonably be raised as to whether or not the series itself was a much needed bridge between players and corporation.

Thank you once more, sincerely and whole heartedly to every single one of you Tricksters who have come forward in the comment section on the final Megalo Life and in the My Trix thread to show your support and even your surprise at the sudden ending of the webcomic. My heart’ still heavy from the ending of it all, but I can watch now with a smile on my face because I know that I did make a difference, and I made that difference because you let me. Thank you.

The decision always has been and is still now, out of my hands. If I could change it, I would, and perhaps I thought naively that you could effect change as well. Maybe that will still happen, at this point my crystal ball can’t see quite that far into the future ^__^ but I’m glad to have your efforts behind it just the same.

As Megalo Life has ended, in a somewhat traumatic sort of way, suddenly, and without any real warning (announcements, or even being posted on the normal day of the week) I will be taking this week off to finish recuperating from what can only be described as a tumultuous, emotional, rollercoaster of crazy bat shit, and will not be posting a new strip for NR today. I should be able to return to form once more next week, and in the meantime I offer some other stimulus for visual trauma:

If you’ve noticed on the top right side of the NR site here, there is a new section added, along with the Comic Archive, and the Vote Campaign for TopWebComics, and other information, there is a new section (still being polished so be nice, please) titled Gilgrim’s Artwork. So if visual stimuli is what you crave, as they say, buy the ticket, take the ride.

Cheers,

–Aleister

KMFDM - Last Things

Well, I didn’t want to take down gilgrim’s post (since it is well written and heartfelt) for one quick thing…so anyway, read this and let your imagination pique at the possibility…

And I, for one, vote for Normalinauts!

–Kilian

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Absurdity of Life, All Things Geek, Announcements, Department of the Completely Obvious, Excuses, Friends, Interwebz, Misguided Dreams, Post, Thanks, The Digital Age, Website Related Information, gilgrim. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.