Monday, January 12, 2009

Witless Dictionary #4--The Austen Event Horizon

Continuing on with my never-ending quest to create terms of art for comics, that don't exist, but should. They're kind of like Sniglets, only you have a slightly better chance of running into someone who knows a Witless Dictionary definition as opposed to people who would even remember Sniglets.

I lie, of course--sniglets are huge. Especially in Burkina Faso.

The Austen Even Horizon: Point in a book's creative run where the creator in question has so piled on the ideas that could best be described as both "stupid" and "utterly chickenheaded" (Exploding communion wafers, Romeo and Juliet with wings, mutant werewolves) that the book becomes completely insufferable. It cannot be enjoyed, it cannot be so-bad-its-good, it can only be endured. At this point, all creator-reader goodwill has evaporated and the only people left reaidng your book are only doing so for reasons owing more to obsessive-compulsive disorder than any other reason.

It's like a tornado plowing through your neighborhood, in monthly 22-page installments. All you can do is hide in the closet and wait for it to be over.

Named for the original originator, naturally.

8 comments:

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

Is there a term for that one moment where the weight of Teh Stoopid finally demolishes any capacity to read the book with a straight face? Because with the originator, I clearly remember Havok promising to make Iceman a new body out of urine, and... oh yeah, that was the last straw for me.

Kazekage said...

Basically that's the Austen Even Horizon in a nutshell--when you're rebuilding Iceman from wee, my feeling is, you've lapsed into Garth Marengi's Darkplace only you're being absolutely serious about it.

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

So would you say Austen's run constituted a single Event Horizon, or was it comprised of a cluster of Event Horizons, each more dense and stupid than the one before it? Because the Urine Resurrection wasn't even the dumbest thing he ever did...

Kazekage said...

I'd say The Draco will always be his naidr in a whole series of nadir.

I would say Austen both inspired the term, and the broke it, as he achieved the Event Horizon so many times . . .well, let's just say the DC Universe could under cataclysmic reboot 10 more times and it still wouldn't equal the Austen Multiple Event Horizon Pileup.

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

Worse than Shakespeare Plus Wings? Worse than Jubilee monologuing about how she wished she'd boned the guy whose grave she's standing over? Worse than Maximus lobo? (Of course, the answer to all these is YES, because The Draco was utterly, utterly horrible.)

Wow. That's a lot of reboots. :)

Kazekage said...

The Draco was awfulness on a Lovercraftian Elder Ones scale. I just . . .wow. Many trees died . . .to bring us that story.

Austen strides the Earth like a mighty titan of Suck, Diana, what can I say?

Diana Kingston-Gabai said...

See, I think even Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep would've taken a look at "The Draco" and gone "Oh hell no, let's hit the Andromeda galaxy instead." :)

Fortunately, that particular colossus has had its legs removed. So at least that's one thing the Big Two have done right in recent memory.

Kazekage said...

If Sam Neil had read "The Draco" during the course of the movie In The Mouth of Madness the same thing would probably have happened, but it'd be a lot easier to explain.

Proving that even a busted clock is right twice a day, huh?

Every day I wake up a little happier I don't have to think about how to spell "Ghazikanian."