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This symbol indicates an SVG file that you can download and use under this licenceSep 02
The world seems to be going through a phase of fascination with 3D. It happens every few years; “3D week on BBC2″ with a free pair of anaglyph glasses taped to the front of the Radio Times (or, as is often the case, formerly taped to the cover, before being nicked by someone who desperately wants to watch the rare archive footage of The Queen in 3D, but doesn’t want to incur the cost of the magazine in the process).
This time it’s different though. This time the technology companies are getting involved. We’ve moved past the cheap-but-limited world of anaglyph images, beyond even the more colourful but nauseatingly motive Pulfrich effect and into the world of full colour 3D, even for stationary scenes. Cinemas use polarised glasses, the new breed of 3D TVs typically use LCD shutter glasses. There are even some glasses-free technologies – which is likely to work well for the 3DS, but not so well in practice for typical TV viewing where heads tend to move around and programmes are often half-watched while trying to simultaneously read a magazine, complete that urgent Powerpoint presentation, or eat dinner.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of 3D films, just not the implementation. I’ve been to an arthouse double-feature of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “It Came From Outer Space” and loved every minute of the camply over-the-top oohs, aahs and occasional gasps from the “terrified” audience. I’ve got a stack of anaglyph and Pufrich glasses from various promotions through the years. I’ve loved the 3D features I’ve seen at IMAX cinemas. And I heartily believe that the 3DS will be an absolute winner.
But the real me – the one who’s not looking for a short gimmicky experience – doesn’t want 3D in a television. For games, maybe – but not for movies, and certainly not for normal run-of-the-mill TV. The fatigue that sets in after a period of wearing 3D glasses (or of having to sit in a predefined spot) makes it a less-than-appealing feature. It seems that I share this opinion with just about everyone I’ve spoken to, and even some technology journalists are less than enthused.
So if nobody is really all that excited about 3D in the home, why is every company trying to push it? Perhaps they’re all trying to out-feature each others products; one adds 3D, they all add 3D to keep up with the Joneses. And the Sonys, Panasonics and Toshibas. But the cynic in me can’t help but feel that the real reasons are twofold: firstly to make all our HD Ready TVs seem as archaic as last century’s CRTs so that we’ll feel compelled to “upgrade” that little bit earlier than we otherwise would; and secondly to finally add a truly distinctive feature to Blu-ray – after all, it seems that most viewers can’t really tell the difference between high- and standard-definition, so without features like 3D what does Blu-ray really offer that DVDs don’t?
Cynicism and personal preferences aside, 3D is all over the tech news these days. And if there’s a bandwagon rolling past, we’ll do our best to hop on board, take the mick a little, then jump off again. It’s what any good satirical webcomic would do.
Click here to download the SVG source for this comic
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Sep 04
It’s taken a long time to get there, but Google are now indexing the content of SVG files.
SVG is a vector graphics format which is similar in structure to the code that makes up an HTML web page. As well as the obvious graphical elements, SVG files often also include text (such as the speech and captions in our comics) and metadata (embedded information about the image – such as the artist’s name, or the license the image is released under). These bits of text should now get indexed by Google.
All our comics start as SVG files created using the free Inkscape application. As we’ve been assiduously inserting metadata into our files right from the start, this should hopefully make it a little easier to find our comics with a Google search.
Sep 01
There are two people responsible for The Greys, and the other one – Vince – had a landmark birthday (that he doesn’t like to talk about) at the weekend. Vince and I don’t usually buy presents for each other – he generally forgets my birthday (despite it being the day before his daughter’s), and I generally can’t be bothered to buy him a present on account of him having forgotten my previous birthday. But as this was a landmark birthday I thought I’d put such petty thoughts to one side and arrange a present or two for him.
My first idea was for a poster-sized print of one of our comics. I went for an A2 sized copy of “The Edorian Job” which was expertly handled by our old friends at Bluepepper Designs (if you need an independent design and print company and are located in or near to Aylesbury, give them a call). The initial A3 proof showed a couple of issues that had sneaked into our original design, but which don’t show up much at web-site sizes. A tweak to the original file, and a bit of colour correction on their part, and I was furnished with a glorious A2 print a couple of days later.
As great as the poster is, I decided to really shame his forgetfulness with a second present. Something that I knew he would like, and that would also help to advertise The Greys. A T-shirt.
This one took a bit more effort as our comics aren’t really designed for T-shirt proportions. A little jiggering and pokering, however, led to a suitable arrangement of the key parts from “Reservoir Aliens“. I added a web address, and one of our trademark Easter Eggs, then placed an order with spreadshirt.co.uk for a pair of light blue tees – one as the present, and one for me.
So here’s the landmark birthday boy – but remember, he doesn’t like to talk about it – in his nice new “Reservoir Aliens” T-shirt. Happy birthday Vince!
Jun 22
If you’re a fan of classic sci-fi TV shows – and let’s face it, if you’ve ended up here then there’s a good chance that you are – check out the Sci-fi Airshow website. I just hope they find the time to add The Liberator to their collection at some point, as everyone knows it’s the most gorgeous sci-fi ship of all time.
Jun 07
After the first couple of episodes of FlashForward I came to the conclusion that most of the characters were complete idiots. Now that I’ve watched the whole series, I can honestly say that my opinion of the characters hasn’t changed much: they’re still idiots.
That said, by the time it finished, I was actually quite enjoying it. Certainly enough that I’m annoyed that yet another ambitious plotline has been cut short before it really had a chance to get going. After its mid-season hiatus the show returned stronger and more compelling than before. The intertwining paths of the characters became more convoluted (in a good way), and they’d finally realised that their futures weren’t set in stone. That still didn’t stop any of them being idiots, especially in the last episode as they all inexorably followed paths that almost deliberately led to their flash forwards coming true – even when that wasn’t a good thing.
But now its over. No second series. No answers to the many outstanding questions. No incentive for me to ever watch another drama with a long-term storyline ever again. That’s the saddest thing about FlashForward’s cancellation: not the fact that it’s joined the long ranks of prematurely cancelled shows, but that it asked for an investment from the viewer that will never be repaid. Please stop doing that. Whomever it is who commissions these things, please treat the viewer with a bit more respect.
I’ve suggested in the past that the commission for a programme should include a contingency fund to allow for an extra episode or two to be produced post-cancellation in order to tie up the loose ends. I fear that unless something like that happens viewers will just become less and less inclined to start watching programmes with an ongoing dramatic narrative. That, in turn, just makes it even less likely that such programmes will be commissioned in the first place, and that really would be a shame, not just for the viewers, but for our culture as a whole.
May 29
I’ve just got back from Collectormania in Milton Keynes, where the staff were kind enough to put some of our flyers out.
If you’ve come to this site as a result of getting a flyer there, first let me thank you for taking the time to have a look. Beyond that, here is the quick potted guide to The Greys:
- We post a new strip every fortnight (the next one is due this Thursday), and occasionally bonus strips in-between
- If you want to be notified when we post a new strip, either sign up to our Facebook page or subscribe to our RSS feed
- You’re free to share our comics with your friends – in fact we positively encourage it
If you want to get a bit more proactive, you’re also welcome to dissect, modify or remix our comics:
- You can copy, share or modify our comics for non-commercial purposes
- All our strips are created using an Open Source application called “Inkscape“, which you can download for free
- We also make our original Inkscape files available for download – there’s a link to the Inkscape SVG file near the end of each comic’s page
- Each of our comics contains one or more hidden Easter Eggs, but usually you’ll need to dig around in Inkscape to find them
Above all else we hope you enjoy these comics as much as we enjoy creating them.