This Week In Normality — Summer Entertainment
Hey there faithful Normalinauts. It’s been a while since we here at NR have produced content with any amount of consistency or energy. It became apparent to Gilgrim and I that, as an endeavor, Normality Restored was far lacking in what we had hoped it might one day become.
There are numerous reasons for why this occurred which I won’t go into here. What it came down to, really, is that between the two of us, we were not able to devote the amount of time to the site that we felt you, the faithful Normalinauts, deserved.
In an effort to give you more for your (proverbial) internetz buck we, as you may have noticed, enlisted reinforcements. Even after bringing on Jezmon, Tengu, Stoker and Ernesto, we still felt that something was missing. It was, all agreed, not a problem to be solved over the electronical mail.
And so, last Sunday, at a secret underground location in the jungles of Southern California, did the Amalgamated Order of Normality convene for the first time. It was agreed that, rather than update the site all willy nilly whenever we (read: me) wanted, the collective group that is Normality Restored would thus commence to publishing weekly articles and a comic…on Friday mornings.
Each week, we at NR will present a variety of articles…and a comic…on a particular theme. It’s like This American Life…only without talking, and Ira Glass, and bumper music, and interruptions by NPR news. As it is now the first week of July it seemed obvious that in this initial installment of the new NR we focus on “The Summer.” In particular, summer entertainment.
To that end we present to you reviews on some recent comics by both Tengu and Stoker, a list of some summer reading suggestions by Ernesto, a run down of all summer goings on in the Star Wars universe by Jezmon, and both a list of some favorite movies to watch in the summer and a deep dark confession about a true summer guilty pleasure by me, your humble Kilian. Lastly, you will notice (faithful Normalinauts will notice…new readers, maybe not so much) that the art of the comic is much changed from previous iterations. In that panel up there you are seeing the new and improved kilian…do I look fat? Seriously, I think I look fat. I said as much to Gilgrim but his response was something like “deal with it.”
PS:
In defense…
In all defense to myself on this I think I should provide the following:
Kilian: “Lastly, I think the new kilian icon makes [me] look fat…do you think I’m fat? Seriously?”
Gilgrim: “fat??? are you serious? did you see mine, I’m lumpy and shaped like a squashed apple…. deal wit’it :p”
So yes, I did say deal with it… but there was more to the conversation.
In all fairness Kilian, I think the Millenium Falcon adds at least 10 lbs.
I miss the red hair.
You know what, my wife pointed out last night that the new “kilian” looks like a jock and/or marine…both of which, i am not…
But, on another note, I have a question for you Kerri. As you are the most loyal of Normalinauts (Tengu now being a part of the production side) what are your thoughts on the new look/direction?
@Kilian
Man, you’re not going to let the redesign die are you? First it’s your too fat, now it’s that you’re a jock or a marine? Am I going to have to redo this, or maybe make another ‘kilian’ so we can turn this one into a background char? Just wondering >__>
I thought the new Kilian looked sort of like a mafia thug. Maybe it’s the wide jaw. And looking like a jock or a marine? I know guys who would DIE to look like a marine.
Thoughts on the new site: At first I was a little overwhelmed. There’s a lot to look at, and I miss that there’s not really a ‘main’ conversation thread anymore since things aren’t linear (meaning blog-like, progressing one post at a time). I was a little disappointed too that with all that’s going on on the site no one added a forum. The voting link is gone too, as is Gilgrim’s Twitter. From a design standpoint I think the background could be darker, right now it’s just this big white thing with a bunch of boxes of text. Seeing who’s writing each review on the frontpage would be nice too. I miss the old NR. I like that you’re all branching out into reviews and stuff, but I think site could be laid out a little more effectively. But hey, I’m just glad you’re all back. I missed the new comics and the weirdness.
Gilgrim — All I’m saying is, something about it (the character) didn’t sit well with me…unlike the first iteration of kilian that I loved from moment one. Since the wife made the comment she did I can’t get the marine connotation out of my mind.
Kerri — Yeah, I get what you’re saying about a “main” conversation, though hopefully, the “mainness” will be driven through the This Week in Normality posts as we present a new theme every week.
I agree it’s a bit too much white space, but I do think its better than the too much dark space of the last, and thankfully gone, revision. And we haven’t added forums because you can still comment on every post and…we don’t have enough readers…yet…to warrant one. When our weekly readership moves up some that is something I definitely want to add.