posted byWizWag on June 15th, 2024

A couple of years ago (okay, probably closer to like, ten) I felt frustrated. This was the sort of petty, autistic frustration that only a perpetually-online weirdo (like myself) can feel. I had noticed that many popular webcomics had developed with a very specific format: they were semi-autobiographical, slice-of-life, comics with the main character being an explicit authorial self-insert. They were also, of course, cartoony, i.e., unrealistic or hyperbolic for comedic or expressive effect.

Popular examples at that time included: The Pigeon Gazette, OwlTurd, and Doodle for Food.

Now, it wasn't the comics themselves that frustrated me; I have no issue with them, I have no issue with the format, and I think they can even be good. What frustrated me was the fact that this exceedingly popular format didn't really have a convenient, named, genre. Sure, I just used the terms "semi-autobiographical" and "slice-of-life" to describe this subset of comics, but "semi-autobiographical slice-of-life" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

But why not just use "slice-of-life"? It's basically what you're describing.

My response to this is that while slice-of-life is a suitable descriptor in most senses, it fails to accurately capture the way in which the main character is a self-insert for the author, and the way in which it is both autobiographical and fictional at the same time. To put it another way: all of these comics can be categorized as slice-of-life, but slice-of-life is far too broad of a term to completely describe this specific subgenre. These types of comics are, at their core, an amalgam of the semi-autobiographical and the slice-of-life.

Initially, I had internally named this subset of comics "visual journals". It made sense to me at the time, because these works were essentially some form of journalling with an obviously prominent visual element. However, I very recently discovered that "visual journal" is commonly understood to mean an actual journal (as in a daily journal or diary) that is drawn in or otherwise contributed to in an artistic way, such as painting, collages, etc.

So now I refer to it as SASOL (Semi-Autobiographical Slice-of-Life). I pronounce it "say-soul". Maybe "visual journal" was a better term, I don't know.

posted byWizWag on June 5th, 2024

It's already June! I feel like it should still be March; time moves too quickly sometimes...

Can you believe that I haven't forgotten about this site yet? In the last week or so I've been exploring various little sites on Neocities, and (surprisingly, but upon further thought, not really) so many are abandoned. One aspect of the older Internet (older as in pre-2010) that I had forgotten about was just how often sites sat dead.

Still, it's exciting to see newer sites and pages emerge. Browsing the Internet actually feels exciting when there's thought, care, and imagination involved. Isn't the point of the Internet to connect to actual people? I can't imagine an Internet without the element of free human expression that only a hand-built site can provide.

Or rather, I can imagine that, but I'd rather not.

Moving forward, I'd like to update this site at least once a week; this place is still barren. Eventually, I'll be gone and this site will become inactive just like the countless sites, pages, and projects that came before it. Hopefully I can properly populate this place before then.

posted byWizWag on May 29th, 2024

Hello, this is my blog. I've been working on this site for the past day or so now, and it's coming along okay. It's looking a little boring, but I don't mind that. Some of the sites I've seen (on Neocities specifically) are very creative! But for now, I just want something that works.

In the meantime, I plan on developing this site further. Hopefully one day into something that could even be considered good. Stay tuned.