![[0194] It’s Fiction All The Way Down](http://www.sandraandwoo.com/comics/2010-08-26-[0194]-it's-fiction-all-the-way-down.png "[0194] It’s Fiction All The Way Down")
The current story arc started with this strip: Hit-Boy.
Kick-Ass is a superhero comic/movie about a guy who wonders why there are no superheroes in real life. So he becomes one… in a comic/movie after all. Therefore it is only natural for a storyline inspired by it to play around with this reality-fiction antithesis. I also thought that referring M Night “What a twist!” Shyamalan would strongly indicate that a big twist is to be expected at the end. Yet, not a single reader wrote a comment that pointed in the right direction.
Just to clarify: This turn of events was already determined when I wrote the script for the first strip of this story arc. I just needed some more time to write the actual dialog for this strip. This took a lot of time since I had to include so much information in it. I hope everything is clear after reading the strip, but here is a more detailed explanation:
It was a movie. A movie about false real-life superheroes. The cell phone video which had been posted on YouTube was also part of the plot. Naturally, the YouTube video got lots of attention because the viewers believed it was real. The cell phone video was produced to drive more interest to the original movie that tells the complete story from the beginning. The complete movie can now be seen at the website of Larisa’s father Ivan. (Larisa always calls her parents by their given names.) Ivan is an artist and some of the visitors might also be interested in his other work, so the movie is also serving as an advertisement for him. The whole thing was the idea of Larisa who also wrote large parts of the screenplay. It’s an amateur production written by a sixth grader; this explains all the improbable events (Brandon’s friend getting a heart-attack) and inaccuracies (the arrest of Brandon by the police officer). Several of these inaccuracies were deliberately written into the script, some were more accidental because I just didn’t bother too much about writing a completely realistic story. There were a few cases where I thought: “Oh, some of the readers point out that X is very unlikely to happen in reality. That’s actually quite cool since this makes it just more authentic for an amateur film.”
After this storyline (there will be two follow-up strips) we will publish more standard comedy strips until the end of the year. After all these action and romance stories I think there is now a need for some classic one-liners and situation comedy.
- Cloud: My secret identity isn’t a secret anymore? No duh! I already had a couple of classmates talk to me about the video yesterday.
- Larisa: … And don’t forget the two hundred thousand people who have already seen the complete movie on Ivan’s website since this morning.
- Cloud: Speaking of your dad; does he know that you’re fiddling with his $2,000 video camera?
- Larisa: I’m not fiddling with it! I’m just waiting for you to finally do the last scene!
- Brandon: The last scene?
- Cloud: Don’t ask!
- Larisa: Anyway, thanks for playing your parts, guys. There’ve been more visitors on Ivan’s site today than in the whole last decade.
- Brandon: You’re welcome. I’m just happy that my little brother finally spent his time on something worthwhile.
- Brandon: However, I still can’t believe that a sixth grader came up with all of this. Absolutely everybody fell for that faked cell phone video!
- Larisa: Show people some moving pictures, and they will believe anything!
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Great! I loved it!
I would’ve never seen this one coming, really clever indeed.
Keep up the good work
Oh, okay, a good reader always complaints:
P
i want to see more larissa with shirtless cloud
Fire will then be, how do i put it, inevitable.
(joke, joke)
You know what this is? It’s a “It was only a dream”. However, unlike being just a dream- it’s much, much more awesome. I would love to see that youtube video, ha ha
im so confused…..
Is confused …
Ok, going back to beginning and rehashing with the new knowledge. I want to see if we should have saw it coming.
I will state which is real and which is fake from my viewpoint, and my thoughts on it.
0178: Real: Something to note.. Ralph is being more cordial than he normally is. perhaps just that he overheard, but there was no smart comments made.
0179: Real: This and the last one I think was designed to fool us into thinking what follows is real. Remember, ralph didnt mess with cloud after the plastic knife incident, any other incident was cloud defending someone else. Bullies tend to want to be friends with those they cant push around
0180: Real/Fake: The first panel is real. That look on ralphs face… not in horror.. but an idea. And this is where the movie starts. Notice cloud in the last frame in the window.
0181: Fake: Just a plot strip
0182: Fake: Time on the clock.. 8:50
0183: Fake: Notice the shadows in both panel 2 behind Brandon and panel 5. for being almost 9 o clock at night, the alley way they are in to conduct their illegal business is rather well lit, which it would need to be if it was staged.
0184: Fake: The long shadows in panel 5 before are gone, and now almost right under them. Even if before the shadows were caused by a streetlamp, there is no reason the shadows would have changed, unless it is because they changed the lighting.
0185: Fake: Shadows again what you would expect from that time of night
0186: Fake: To be honest, when I first saw this, i thought it was a bit weak (if it was real) because i dont know of any cop that would have jumped to that specific conclusion. If some costumed freaks jumped out and i heard a bang, and my friend falls down, I would be also running to the nearest police station. And I would not have been doing anything wrong. This should have been the first real clue it was a setup. Also, this friend was the same from 0179. Why do it in an alley when they were openly doing it at brandons own house?
0187: Fake: Lets see.. signs this was a fake… Cop didnt check Brandon for weapons? no handcuffs before talking to Mrs Williams? Brandon stabbed an arm when the chest was an easier target? In hindsight, i should have guessed about this point it was a fake
0188: Fake: A real good acton Scene. This is the part that would have been taken with the cell phone and posted as a “Teaser” with how deserted the street is, and how quick the action is, someone had to have had the cellphone ready to capture it.
0189: Fake: Here we see the person taking the cellphone picture.
0190: Fake: Well not Yumas reaction, but still this is the Cellphone teaser
0191: Real: Free Bacon is always better.. yum yum
0192: Real: This one had a lot of people, including me, talking and trying to figure out how he got in past clouds family. hindsight says.. cause it wasnt real. and brandon was playing a role
0193: Sonata: DAMN YOU CLIFFHANGERS!
0194: Real: This is when we find out about what has happened. They apparently now have placed the entire video up on the net.
Tell you know. I am not disapponted with the work done. Im disappointed I got fooled so well.. looking back at places where i thought storyline was weak and stretching slightly turn out to be the clues that it was a video project. Well done
@ Novil:
well, “belive you me” is a englis saying meaning “belive what im telling you” or “you can belive me”
gonna headshot larisa for this.
with cheeseburgers.
feel the burning cheese.
prime_pm wrote:
And… “The cake is a lie!”
I doubt my comment meets the comment posting rules by violating the last one as it criticizes the content of Sandra and Woo but I hope that it is constructive as opposed to unproductive but it might very well be the later so I apologize if that is the case. If this comment is removed, I harbor no ill feelings.
When reading to story arc I read it as if the events were intended to be real in the universe of the comic. I was willing to ignore the unrealism as part of what makes fiction compelling. Most fiction is fantastical to some degree or another and completely realistic fiction is very hard to make compelling and there are just some premises that are uninteresting if done realistically no matter what the skill of the writer. Most arrests are extremely mundane and boring.
I also was willing to suspend disbelief not only because doing so made the story more compelling and entertaining but also because sometimes police officers do act in a improper, illegal, and unwise manner and because, in it’s own way, the story is still believable. In any city with over 1 million people, there are at-least a thousand people with a one in a thousand life story. While Sandra and Woo isn’t set in such a city, extremely unlikely events do happen quite regularly.
I do find the premise that this whole thing to be a hoax to be to much of a stretch for me, however, and more unrealistic then a portrayal of real events. In this comic an ambulance is shown and the police officer is or is portraying an actual police officer. Either the participants are committing a fraud of government services (including an actual assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon), impersonating government services including law enforcement (and in an unauthorized and unflattering light), or have the cooperation and/or participation of the government.
The first two of these possibilities are illegal and governments take the issues very seriously and the last one is very unbelievable. While I see a compelling reason for each of the (non-governmental) participants to participate, I see no compelling reason for the local government(s) to acquiesce or assist in this project especially as the message is damaging to the goals of most local governments. Also government administrators tend to be conservative in implementation regardless of their position on policy. I suppose the participants could have used free speech rights and paid to reserve the section of the town they used but that would cost money I’m not sure they could and/or want to afford (the find of the treasure previously in the comic not-withstanding).
I echo the disappointments with this turn in the story arc and I disagree with Mr. Knoerzer about which situation is more realistic. I also think the story holds up better as being more consistent without the turn of events shown in today’s strip. This is probably because of my thinking as shown in my statements above and also because small signals in previous strips are inconsistent with this being an act.
For example, CPR has negative effects and should NEVER be done on someone who doesn’t need it (though don’t hesitate if someone does need it. In that situation the benefits of CPR far outweigh the risks). I’m sure there is a way to simulate CPR that film studios can do but I’m not sure how effective that would be in street theater. For a change up like this there needs to be subtle and often overlooked hints in previous strips that are constant with the change and not with the previous direction. I see the opposite in this strip.
I apologize if my criticism is hurtful but that is not the intent and I hope it’s useful to both the creators and their audience. Needless to say, I read the strip because I find it compelling and entertaining to do so. The minor defects that exist in my mind and that I’m pointing out come nowhere close to changing that.
Woah! That was way too clever. Maybe there’s a prize involved.
Wait, how could they watch the whole movie on her father’s site if the whole movie hasn’t even been shot yet? Anyways I don’t know, I know that you’ve written it so that this is the way it’s supposed to play out from the start but I feel like the reveal was too “Oh it was all a dream, oh well back to whatever was happening before.”
Nice ending!! Loved the arc!
I was completely fooled. That was… wow. Thanks for the ride!
Is Sandra going to be upset that she didn’t get a part?
Omg we were so pwned by that
Nice job fooling everyone!
disapointing
You had me fooled. I know that isn’t anything original, but I wanted to get in on any rough demographics/statistics that are going.
Novil wrote:
I do think I must disagree. I read a lot of Manga and quite often I find the battles in them more compelling than in their anime counterparts(though this is hardly a rule). One that I currently caught up on, History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi, for example is a manga that has plenty of battle scenes that I quite enjoy and keep me on the edge of my seat. On the other hand its anime is a bit of a let down. The battle scenes are at best equally captivating, and often less so.
Other mangas that caught me with battle scenes were things like Dance in the Vampire Bund, Break Blade, and The Record of a Fallen Vampire. While not battle mangas their combat scenes have me on the edge. And note that this is just off the top of my head. On the other hand I will admit that newspaper style comics that I have seen often don’t fare as well in action/battle type scenes.
*facepalm* And then they woke up.
I had more to say, but Ben Schwab covered most of it with his excellent post
Wow, I totally got fooled! I thought Novil was serious about the ‘liberate Burma’ BS!
@ Ben Schwab:
man if i could thumbs you up forever id do it! eccelent post!
the bags under his eyes are REALLY freaking me out
In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed like a lot of other people here. But then I went and read through the whole arc again (straight through) and I actually kind of like it, and I can see where it makes more sense if you realize the whole thing was a movie instead of real life.
I think most of us are disappointed because of the wait factor.
Since we’re all caught up with the strip posts, we have to wait 3 or 4 days between each strip. Since we assumed it was all real, we had all that time to over-hype ourselves an ending based on that assumption. So this feels like a bit of a let down. I bet the people who come later and breeze through the arc will find it a lot more entertaining than we did.
@Ben Schwab, I bet there a some forms you can fill out at city hall for permits to have someone play a police officer in your film (and he probably has to be fingerprinted), but I doubt it’s as hard as you assume it is. Almost every action movie set in current times has police officers, as well as most TV shows. I wouldn’t doubt that there’s a standard procedure by now. (Anyone who knows more than me about this, correct me if I’m wrong.)
And if I AM wrong, there’s always that “suspension of disbelief” you were using when you assumed the whole thing was real.
As for the CPR, if you don’t push very hard, it’s not damaging. Since Ye Thuza is Ye Thuza, I have a feeling she’d be pretty good at judging how hard is too hard.
tl;dr GO read the whole arc again and see if you like it better than you did a second ago.
mmmh… if it’s has been all a film… why does the bully in strip 184 THINK that his friend was shot at (note he is using thinking speech baloons), shouldn’t he been aware he was in a movie?
In event of real emergency this would be followed by instructions. The cop would have frisked and cuffed him.
That’s part of the movie
@ Ivan:
Method acting, I guess?
Sorry for not commenting so long, but didn’ have any net.
You’re amazing man, I thought he heartattack was a wierd thing, but no matter how much I thought aboot it I never had ANY idea about a twist like this! O_O”
Kudos to you once again, awesome story and great tension all the way. Keep up the good work and I can’t wait to see the old comedy and the new serious strips.
First off – let me add my WAY TO GO on completely fooling me! I really want to be able to say “oh yeah, saw this coming a mile away” – only I didn’t! This was a great ending! Had me laughing like crazy … at myself mostly! Love this ending and the way it answered aaallll those lingering questions. Excellent job of scripting!
@Ben Schwab;
Portraying a police officer, or any other government official, in any kind of “light” (good or bad) for the purposes of making a film, video, play, etc … is protected speech in the U.S. This falls under the First Ammendment to the U.S. Constitution and has been upheld in several court cases over the years. Using a vehicle made-up to look like an ambulance – film producers do that thousands of times/year. Also falls under the first ammendment. Setting up a fake “police station” piece of cake. Asking for and getting the cooperation of a local police department, even for student film “projects” … sometimes difficult, but not impossible.
None of what was portrayed would be very difficult to do. The cooperation of the local constabulary might be needed to block off a section of town if this were done on real city streets. HOWEVER – if any of them knew people who owned property that would work for the setting (ie, property in a “warehouse district” – the local police would not be able to do much if they were inclined to be difficult if this were all filmed on private property. Even the use of mock-up emergency vehicles, the wearing of the uniforms and so forth would all still fall under the protection of the First Ammendment, especially if performed on private property.
Thank the founding fathers! They gave us the First Ammendment! It annoys the crap out of the police and other government entities a lot of times, as well as the general population (when someone is saying something they don’t like) – but it’s there and it is one of the best things about living here.
I suddenly understand everything!
AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM… arrgh!
Still, at least it’s a quite clever version of that old cliche
I liked this! It made more sense as a movie project, rather than as real-life events. Good!
I was pretty suprised when I read the part with the dealers…. now I get it. ( now I’m calmed…)
And that was the author, messing with gullible fools like me. Heh.
Does Ivan really have a website? if so, what is the URL so I can get to it?
My one regret is that I wasn’t reading this comic back when this storyline took place. It would have been a perfect place to write a review on it.
That said, I for one am glad this was a movie and not “real” in the comic. It was seriously stretching my suspension of disbelief, so seeing it was a “film project” of sorts helped in my enjoyment of the story.