Whedonesque Mobile : Comments on 14388 : Sugarshock part 3

Simon: the fastest Whedon-related content ever blogged.

I'm in awe. And I want a lathe.

Thatwas awesome. (and please, someone help me stop saying "awesome").

Wonderful! I hope there are plans to publish it in the (possibly antiquated but still very lovely) print style format one day.

silvius | October 04, 02:05 CET

"Death Gurgle!"

Septimus | October 04, 02:05 CET

silviius, my understanding is that the deal with MySpace precludes paper for a year.

Meanwhile, Fabio has some thoughts on Sugarshock now that the first story's been told.

Also: That panel of Dandelion performing the saddest song? Must make that my new desktop.

[ edited by theonetruebix on 2007-10-03 23:10 ]

The One True b!X | October 04, 02:08 CET

I think that's the first time I've laughed out loud at the word 'gaywad.'

Well played, Mr. Whedon. Well played.

MadeToLoveJoss | October 04, 02:15 CET

I love the groupie's pants, and the use of binary as a punishing force. I'm disappointed that the L'Lihdra/Wade/Groupie love triangle didn't develop as I expected.

That guitar-playing panel is also bound for my desktop.

[ edited by Sunfire on 2007-10-03 23:22 ]

Sunfire | October 04, 02:19 CET

Amazing.... I died laughing (and that's hard to do).

Kissy th' face!

BrownCoat_Tabz | October 04, 02:33 CET

I'm so happy I can hardly breathe...

bubbletoes | October 04, 02:46 CET

Loved it. Made my day.

the Groosalugg | October 04, 02:47 CET

Ahh, another Whedon true love get together followed by instantanious death. Good to see Joss hasn't lost his touch! *snicker*

GimpyD | October 04, 03:07 CET

The description of the song is magnificent.

And:
Squirrels have NO SOULS!

I'd really like to have this in book form, too.

jcs | October 04, 03:20 CET

I know what you mean, Dark Horse can make a major mint committing this webcomic to paper, if others haven't done so already by printing it out at home.
By the way, was "The Saddest Song In the World" written by a New York Mets fan?

[ edited by impalergeneral on 2007-10-04 00:43 ]

impalergeneral | October 04, 03:27 CET

I'll agree with the squirrels part (evil bastards...)

I bow in humble supplication of the Purple One's greatness (and Fabio, definitely Fabio). Sugarshock continues to be, what's the word? Awesome. ;)

[ edited by deepgirl187 on 2007-10-04 00:29 ]

deepgirl187 | October 04, 03:28 CET

Awesome is so inadequate a word. We must form a think tank of the world's greatest scientist and wordamaticians (that's totally a word) to properly describe this sensation!

kishi | October 04, 03:34 CET

It's auspicious, is what it is.

This felt so nicely noir, almost: "This is Flenders. The rules are different. Flenders rules."

And yeah, the song-description was loooovely, and came with my own special happy at Leonard Cohen love...

They've moved to flash-viewing, so download is different, but do-able.

"Why are you talking in spurts?"

QuoterGal | October 04, 03:45 CET

b!x said: Meanwhile, Fabio has some thoughts on Sugarshock now that the first story's been told.
Also: That panel of Dandelion performing the saddest song? Must make that my new desktop.

Just totally unrelated comment, his post read so formal in English, weird...
That panel... a must for a T-Shirt (my friends got me a birthday present a few weeks ago, with one of Jo Chen's Season 8 covers, it looked great).

So where's earth? Oh, I'm in it.

"Why are you talking in spurts?"

Must Try. Create Post. In Spurts.

Numfar PTB | October 04, 03:53 CET

They've moved to flash-viewing, so download is different, but do-able.

Yeah, pain. Making it more annoying to finish my self-printed paper edition.

The One True b!X | October 04, 03:55 CET

I always knew that about squirrels.

embers | October 04, 04:15 CET

I was so excited when I saw that it had come out. So I didn't read it. I wanted to saver it, like, just having it looming there for me to read, cause I knew once I'd read it, it'd be read. I wanted to read it, but I didn't want to finish reading it. It's so much delightful silly fun. It's probably my favourite thing from Joss, ever. And the illustrations are just so charming.
Thanks so much!

Vanessa_A | October 04, 04:41 CET

One time? When I was around age seven I found a dead squirrel. Really dead-looking. Apparently hit by a car. Dried blood around its eyes and ears. Stiff when I put it in a shoe box to take it out to the woods for a kiddie animal funeral. Something made me nervous before I could even start digging, and I backed off, fretting. After a while, the squirrel popped out of the box and ran off. True story. Some squirrels are undead.

If anybody who like me didn't know Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings wants to hear it, NPR has a free version of the original performance here.

dreamlogic | October 04, 05:12 CET

Incidentally, am I alone in noticing that Dandelion's commentaries and run-on sentences seem to mirror the style of certain comments posted on a certain community blog by a certain four-lettered-purple-poster?

Mort | October 04, 05:22 CET

OMG!! Dreamlogic, you mean they are both souless and undead? Now I'm really afraid.

embers | October 04, 05:42 CET

Adagio For Strings at the Edinburgh Festival Fireworks Concert was... oddly not so fun.

Still. Coulda been Gloomy Sunday.

Craig Oxbrow | October 04, 05:48 CET

NPR has a free version of the original performance here.

If you don't know it, it will turn out that you do, once you hear it.

The One True b!X | October 04, 06:02 CET

I'm underwhelmed by it too, Craig Oxbrow. Maybe because I've heard more powerful precedents. I spent a lot of time looking for a decent free clip of the adagio from J.S. Bach's Sonata no. 3 for Cello and Piano, to offer as my idea of the saddest song in the world, but couldn't find any.

dreamlogic | October 04, 06:41 CET

Totally hauls booty. Or rather, I was laughing mine off. :D

Lunakitty | October 04, 07:17 CET

I didn't say I was underwhelmed. Indeed, I'm perfectly happy for the actual Saddest Song In The World not to be aired in a comedy. :D

Craig Oxbrow | October 04, 07:24 CET

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

dreamlogic | October 04, 07:32 CET

Loved it. And I must confess to feeling rather vindicated. I was just sitting in the park today with my mother having a picnic lunch when a squirrel invaded. We began a stare down with me glaring and telling it it was evil and disgusting, and you get the idea. All the while my mother thinking I was apparently drinking my lunch, and then tonight, vindication! I always knew my deep and abiding hatred of squirrels was not misplaced. :)

onthedrift | October 04, 09:15 CET

So satisfied with the ending, but also so sad (much in the way of the Saddest Song in the World, if feeling could be music) that it's over. But only for now, maybe? Fabio is clearly fond of drawing Dandelion, based on his blog and the love that's obvious in every brushstroke. All's I know is, I'll sure miss her if she and her gang goes away forever after this all-too-brief and hilarious introduction.

And I love that Adagio for Strings is an inspiration for the SSITW. It's always been my personal favorite beautiful sad song, and one I secretly imagined as Angel's theme circa his BTVS years and S1-S2 of ATS. I'm kind of amazed that my association of it with the Jossverse wasn't too far wrong. (In my own personal mental mix of influences on the band's unheard masterpiece, I'm also throwing in Arvo Part's "Passio", "The Serpent's Egg" by Dead Can Dance, "Filigree and Shadow" by This Mortal Coil, "Music has the Right to Children" and "Campfire Headphase" by Boards of Canada, and pretty much anything by Nick Drake and Elliott Smith....)

Wiseblood | October 04, 09:19 CET

Listening to "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen sung by Jeff Buckley, while thinking about Jeff and his father's deaths.

That's sad, too.

Ooh, also "Wounded Heart" by Jude Johnstone. Eva Cassidy's "Over the Rainbow" cover.

*stops, overcome with sadness.*

Oh, yeah, Bartok and cellos...

*sigh*

QuoterGal | October 04, 09:52 CET

What I'm talking about I can't produce online. Except as horrible MIDIs that sound like people dying on kazoos.

dreamlogic | October 04, 10:03 CET

that sound like people dying on kazoos

Why were they on kazoos when they died?

The One True b!X | October 04, 10:08 CET

I tried turning wood on a lathe once.

I was really bad at it.

Is it just grey squirrels that have no souls or are red squirrels included too? I kinda like red squirrels.

This was awesome and I'm in love with Dandelion.

TheDivineGoat | October 04, 10:08 CET

They were playing real instruments. The MIDIs just made them sound like they were on kazoos, and dying. I hope they're still alive and being better recorded.

dreamlogic | October 04, 10:38 CET

It was hilarious!
Dandelion is awesome.
I kinda think squirrels do have a soul, however.

brown_h | October 04, 10:44 CET

We rescued orphaned baby squirrels when I was a kid, and raised 'em as pets. They were dear as hell, and most responsive to human-type kids. I used to eat dinner with the runt ("Stumpy") on my shoulder...

If they don't have souls, then I musta been consorting with... well, I dunno what, but it wouldn't have been good. It would explain some things...

I think they do, though.

QuoterGal | October 04, 10:55 CET

I still like squirrels, too.

dreamlogic | October 04, 11:02 CET

I still like squirrels, too, but I loved that comic. It was a comic-y goodness day, what with Buffy, Spike: Shadow Puppet and Sugarshock!

samatwitch | October 04, 12:09 CET

I agree with TheDivineGoat, didn't anticipate ever typing that phrase; Red Squirrels are cool. Grey squirrels don't have souls but you can kill them if you crush their nuts.

Didn't Holly, from Red Dwarf, lose a planet by looking out the wrong window? Now I keep thinking of Red Dwarf squirrels.

MutantFriend | October 04, 13:49 CET

Awesome... I wish there was more. Loved the description of the sad song.

MutantFriend:"but you can kill them if you crush their nuts"

That is hilarious.

non sequitur | October 04, 14:17 CET

Come to Australia. Tell no-one but we have no squirrels, red, grey or undead!

catalyst2 | October 04, 16:59 CET

Come clean, you must have some kind of undead animals there, catalyst2. Not that a whole species is evil, but some of them. That's just how it goes.

[ edited by dreamlogic on 2007-10-04 14:47 ]

dreamlogic | October 04, 17:43 CET

catalyst2, we do have lots of possums though. They definitely qualify as undead and immortal, possibly both.

non sequitur | October 04, 18:06 CET

They were playing real instruments. The MIDIs just made them sound like they were on kazoos, and dying.

Yes, I got this.

(Someday I'll figure out why so many people think I'm an idiot who doesn't understand what someone has said, rather than them noticing that I understood fine but was just being a smartass. Heh.)

The One True b!X | October 04, 19:49 CET

It's not just you, bix.

Sunfire | October 04, 20:17 CET

Yah, it happens to me alla time. I always think, "Is there anything I've done or said that makes you think I'm a mo-ron?" And the answer is a resounding, "Apparently."

For the record, b!xy, I always assume you're being a smartass.

QuoterGal | October 04, 20:42 CET

Wiseblood: works great as theme for Angel -- good insight!

Awesome comic -- want in paper (yeah, I know, said three billion times already).

Was that guy talking binary? Gaywad.

Creepy little Viking mothers holding newborn Vikings.

Joss Whedon: master of sarcasm and parody

whedongeek | October 04, 20:49 CET

So touchy, these b!xs. I'm always pretty much assuming we're all being smart-asses.

Back to the comic, I loved the "One! Two! Three! Four..." on one page shifting to bitching about the contract on the next. From the fantasy to the reality.

dreamlogic | October 05, 01:18 CET

The squirrel and 'one, two three, four...' bits were the best. Funny stuffs.

Dan Corson | October 05, 01:25 CET

catalyst2, now that you've said this, of course, the squirrels shall plan a full-scale invasion of Australia. I blame you, and you entirely.

Sugarshock was great. Unplugged wants more.

UnpluggedCrazy | October 05, 02:37 CET

Dandelion the Squirrel Slayer

*giggle*
happy day

Zannadoo | October 05, 03:50 CET

Now I've been duly warned about the forthcoming squirrel invasion, I have every intention to arm my fat ass with a lathe.

And possibly, a printed copy of 'Sugarshock'.

missb | October 05, 03:51 CET

Love. Love. Love.

More, please.

Maddyanne | October 05, 07:18 CET

Leave it to Joss to be the one person I have ever seen reference the movie Diva. I have a real fondness for that movie. It is the one and only movie that I can recommend to most people and be pretty certain they have not seen. It has been a little while since I saw the movie the last time, but I did find a recording of Callas doing the song I think Joss meant. I'm too sleepy to remember how to do a proper llink, but here is the address.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7CVNIYWTXFk

I keep reading these when I am half asleep and not really understanding what is going on. I'll try again when i am awake. Consciousness often helps the thought processes as I recall...

newcj | October 05, 08:30 CET

Love it, it's brilliant ...

But squirrels do so have souls.

Shapenew | October 06, 05:55 CET

Sugarshock is the best thing Whedon has ever written. Period.

GrapenutsRobot | October 07, 03:36 CET

October 04 2007