Common Sense and Ironic Commentary.

Irony is probably one of the most complex concepts in language. I am not even sure how many languages actually employ it, but in the English language it has a number of different meanings.

It comes from the Greek: eirōneía, which means hypocrisy, deception or feigned ignorance (I looked it up. Oxford English Dictionary). But it has sired a number of bastard children with the English language.

The most basic dictionary definition of Irony is: “A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used.” When I was an English teacher in Thailand this concept caused numerous problems with my students. We seldom realise how much irony is a part of our everyday language, and that we don’t even notice when we say the direct opposite of our intended meaning.

The forms of irony as I know them are:

• Verbal Irony - most commonly associated with sarcasm. In this way we say the opposite of what we mean, but denote it in conversation with a specific tone or emphasis.
• Dramatic Irony- When a spectator has special knowledge of situation that a character in a play (or even a person in real life) does not. It creates humour or dramatic conflict when a character is relying on certain knowledge, which the observer knows to be contrary. i.e. In Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows Juliet is not actually dead, but Romeo does not. (This is actually tragic-irony, a sub-division of dramatic-irony)
• Situational Irony- When there is a certain ‘perverse appropriateness’ to the outcome of a story or event. This was the form of irony Alanis Morissette was going on about. Another version of this is cosmic-irony, where it appears there is some grand-overseer or God deliberately toying with our lives to ensure things have an ironic outcome.

If I really looked I could probably find hundreds more definitions for Irony, but these cover the most common forms of it. I think it’s the complexity of irony (and the fact that in story telling it gives you a huge bulls-eye at which to direct the path of your narrative) that makes it so fascinating to me. I would be lying if I didn’t admit to the fact that in the majority of my strips I am trying to achieve some form of irony in the storyline.

For this strip I went mention ‘ironic commentary’ which I believe is a situation where there is the voice of a commentator describing things the opposite of how they are actually occurring. I am not even sure if it is a actual concept, but that’s the way I’m using it here.

Singles

This week is a practice run of ‘single-strips’ or ‘fillers’. These are just one-off strips without any continuing storyline. They allow readers who haven’t been following the regular storylines to get an easy start into the world of Freelance, and would also work to pad out a week if I ever could not make a story fit into a multiple of 5 (5 working days means that storylines should ideally reach some sort of a conclusion on a Friday, to avoid readers losing track over the weekend).

Today’s strip comes from the story I always hear people tell about how van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime. It’s perfectly true, but the real message of the story is that true genius being recognised after the person’s death is actually quite a rare event.

If it were common place then the van Gogh story would be ordinary, and therefore not worth relating. Nevertheless it is a useful way to shore up our self-doubt: If we continually fail in our lives there is always the hope that everyone will discover we were actually a genius all along and they just hadn’t noticed. It’s a lie I tell myself often.

Blogs are for people with too much time on their hands and no real social lives. So I should be great a keeping one. But alas, I am not. My updates are about as regular as that poor woman who seems to be in every laxative commercial, (before she empties her metaphorically-dubious handbag and starts farting rose petals).

Last week the theme was love and what we go through in the hope of having it returned. A trifle cynical, but I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to imagine that if there were vampires, there would be people lonely or desperate enough to date them. And I mean real blood-drinking vampires here, not the tofu-sucking vegan-vampires of recent popular fiction and movies. The physical demands a vampire-lover would put on your heart would probably be insignificant compared with the emotional demands a typical relationship puts on it.

This week we’re in the territory of dealing with imminent death (I believe ideas in comic strips can be extended beyond Monday-hating cats), and do we really learn from our mistakes.

If we could travel back in time and change our lives how many of us would? I’d like to think there are plenty of things I’d go back and change, but then I wouldn’t be who I am today. And if everything in my life had run smoothly, I’d have nothing to write about. Also, I’m not sure how much free-will we have in the decisions we make in life. Most of them seem to spur-of-the-moment and made on instinct. The feeling of having made a meaningful decision only comes later when we rationalise the choice to ourselves.

Relax.

Matt

Love and Vampires

Luckily I write a few days in advance. Writer’s block has struck me like hairy fat man in a dress who hears you laughing at him behind his back. Today was wretchedly unproductive. Oh no, wait, scratch that. I did work my way through half a bowl of chocolate mousse. Now if only I could find someone to pay me to do that…

This week’s themes are ‘love’ and ‘vampires.’ Or perhaps what we might be willing to put up with in the hope of being loved, or even appreciated for who we are.

The First Post

Hello, dear reader. May I just say you are looking particularly lovely today. Yes you, the one looking at the screen right now. Maybe lean back a little though, I can see right up your nose from here.

This is a my first blog entry for the new site. From today onwards (30 November 2009) this site is going to be updated daily, which is pretty exciting (well, maybe not for you, but for me it’s the start of trying to get this strip syndicated)

If you haven’t figured it out already, this site was created to launch my new strip: “Freelance”. If you follow it regularly you will get to learn a lot more about the characters, but for now all I need to tell you is that it primarily revolves around Lance Freeburn and Mango. Lance is a freelance writer, and Mango… well, Mango is a talking chimpanzee.

So take a look around, and enjoy. I’m still building up the site, so some of the links might not work yet, but soon it will be running like a well-oiled machine (even if that machine is being operated by a particularly dozy man, working in his fluffy sheep-skin slippers).