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Published: 2013-06-21 16:29:33 +0000 UTC; Views: 11472; Favourites: 154; Downloads: 125
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Years and years ago, I was writing a series of short stories for a discussion board I hung out at, and the two main characters were a couple who were very much in love with each other. It was a comedy series, not really focused on drama or romance at all. A poster who read what I'd written criticized my work because I never had any sort of serious threat to the main characters' relationship. He felt that the premise suffered because there was no suspense between the couple, no implication that some horrible life-shattering drama would strike down from the heavens and tear them unjustly apart.And I read his criticism and thought "So? Who says they can't just be happy together?"
Just a bubbly quickie of Joel and Michelle.
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Comments: 41
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In my opinion, the reason this geek+hot girl couple works so well is because they have good chemistry and actual stuff in common.
Others like Eric+Donna, Ross+Rachel, or Leonard+Penny aren't as effective because they seem toΒ always have troubles in their relationship, yet stay together anyway simply because they can.
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You and my little sister would get along well on this topic XD She too hates the "romance must have drama" cliche
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I don't know if you still watch anything from Doug Walker aka The Nostalgia Critic, but I think you and Doug would go well together. He did a video called Top 10 WORST Cliches, and one of them is The Misunderstanding. I think it's a good way of showing why you responded the way you did then. youtu.be/P_0ByD-UMek?t=12m27s
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Though the chap sounds like an ass, I suppose I can understand where he's coming from. Nonetheless, I've found through my own main couple that a source of conflict can instead be found within the characters themselves and their inner struggles, their relationship helping them to become stronger from within. That is to say, the conflict is not with each other, but themselves, and their strong relationship helps them to pull through and grow into stronger, better people.
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People can be dicks. They just want to shit on others' happiness.
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Awww man. I'm sooo jealous. Why it something not working in my live? X(
Such boys have so a luck with so cute girls...... This is so good this pic.
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Yeah, fuck those critics who miss the point of light comedy.
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an underwater wedding would be a good idea and have talk to if they could?
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On TV Tropes, there's 'the other couple', who are in the story to provide a calm, stablem, harmonious couple to contrast with all the dramedy of the 'main couple'. That's what Joel and Michelle are; they're that little island of relative sanity in the middle of all the histrionics.
As for the Lit Major who critiqued your work: don't sweat it. So, it's light comedy. So what? Read the 'Three Musketeers' some time; it's bubblegum. But it's bubblegum that has been read, touched, motivated, and inspired more people than the oh-so-'important' work of the French Literary Critics who savaged Dumas back in the 19th Century (none of whom I have the slightest idea as to what their names were)
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Cute picture; Joel & Michelle are the few "WhiteGuy/AsianGirl" couples that I actually like.
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You really should do an underwater nude pic of them...or of any other brave couple.
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.....I'm telling Chris Hansen.
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I spend a lot of mental time analyzing stories and dissecting what makes them work (or not). This looks like a good place to dump my thoughts on Joel and Michelle.
There is a warmth to Joel and Michelle that's very hard to nail on purpose. You don't see it very often in media because getting that kind of character chemistry right is difficult. Most people substitute tension and WT/WT instead, because that's much easier to write. Not so here. The heart of your strip is that no matter how bad things get, no matter how embarrassing the situation or humiliating the circumstances, Joel and Michelle will always love each other. Destroying that would wreck the world you've built up.
Now, that formula doesn't ALWAYS work. Like I said, it's hard to do. The effectiveness of this depends on the couple. Barbie and Ken are marketed as a couple, yet plenty of little girls make their Barbies fall for GI Joe or a Pound Puppy or the living room lamp. You can't just say it's so. You can't manufacture a relationship between two fictional characters any more than you can control a real one. You can only find it through experimentation. Note that Forever 16 has several couples, but you've focused on Joel and Michelle -- that's because they stood out.
There are WT/WT stories where the entirety of the drama hinges on two people getting together -- and I've never been a fan of these for many reasons....they're annoying, they're unrealistic, they're carrot-in-front-of-the-cow forms of entertainment....and worst of all, they're impossible to sustain. When you weigh every bit of a story's drama on romantic tension, you have two eventual choices: to resolve it, which will make everyone bored and then they'll leave. Or you can drag it out as long as possible, which will make everyone bored and then they'll leave. You can't win either way. You're putting an expiration date on your own creation. So unless you are specifically PLANNING to end it in a short period of time, it's a bad idea.
This is also why the current regime running comic books is having such a hard time. They're run by people who want never-ending soap opera plots where no one ever gets what they want. Soap opera formulas, with their constant juggling of couples and characters, inevitably stumble on appealing couples by accident -- and then they don't know what to do.
Some people were upset when it was announced MJ had been cut from the next Amazing Spider-Man movie, even though the director had perfectly good reasons (the actress stunk, and it was still too early to introduce her). Why? Because people are simply more attached to the MJ-Peter coupling than the Gwen-Peter one. It's a more interesting couple; there's better chemistry there. That's a problem when you want to write someone else in. Once your character finds his or her match, you can't just pretend they didn't -- the genie's out of the bottle. They keep forgetting MJ was the result of years of experiments; they matched Spider-Man up with a ton of girls and none of them stuck quite as well. Even if it wasn't thought of as experimentation, that is where the process gets you eventually.
The lesson is that when you find good couples, treasure them, because they're not easy to build up in the first place.
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I see what you mean, man. Β
Seriously, fuck Joe Quesada and his involvement in the One More Day storyline. Β www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbβ¦
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I totally agree with you. Why can't we live "happily ever after", but not in that ambiguous end-of-the-fairy-tale-way? Saying we can't is just silly. Sure you might have problems, but if you're really devoted to the other person, you're not going to let those problems get in the way of your relationship.
Maybe not all people can think that way, but that doesn't mean a few can't.
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"Who says they can't just be happy together?" Everyone ever. You can't go to the movies, you can't get a gift, you can't just go get a burger, not enough money. No car either. She can't spend time with her or he can't spend time with him. She's making insane demands or he's somehow done something that annows her. Probably by doing exactly what she told him to do before she changed her mind. Just because two people fall in love shouldn't make them "star-crossed lovers in a world that wants to tear them apart (in the deny-their-love sort of way)" For Joel and Michelle to have a normal relationship is abnormal. For there is no normal, there isn't enough peace and quiet, and no-one's truly gets to be in control of things. (which does explain the get-away-from-it-all swim) The real world is a crapsack world where everything falls apart. Right now they're probably ruining everything in both their pockets. And the shoes.
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Are you that desperate for a bad end?
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Nope, I just think that "because they're in love!" isn't a good idea for the author to avoid throwing normal day-to-day problems at them. True love is just as fragile as any other relationship- moreso given the passionate IQ drop.
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Dude, I think you're looking for the wrong comic strip; this isn't Funky Winkerbean.
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There are no smileys that grin appropriatly and still stick their tounge out at the same time. I don't know about you, but for the rest of us High school was just a shorter way of saying "Era packed full of horrible life-shattering drama that we didn't ask for but is done apon us anyway." I don't care that Joel and Michelle are in love. However: Peace and quiet and everything's going their way? No, it's unnatural!
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To quote the Hoaxer in Grant Morrison's Flex Mentallo, "Only a bitter little adolescent boy could confuse realism with pessimism."
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Then some must find it strange how realism inspires so much pessimism. Realist and optimist sure arn't the same thing.
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True, but they seem to intersect a lot of time.
Also, adding so-called "Realism" to fiction can be kinda stupid, especially when in real life reality is stranger than fiction.
www.cracked.com/article_21239_β¦
www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/5-β¦
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My high-school days were great; I wasn't popular, but I got along well with lots of different people and was generally well-liked.
No duh it's unnatural; this is a fiction, it doesn't have to follow the rules of reality.
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Hell, I'm GLAD to see a cartoon couple that doesn't have to face issues day to day like what high school students do...that whole hormonal thing and all. My best friends have been together since high school and they just about live a fairy tale life. They love each other that much, and between their work ethics and her profound expertise with finances, along with a mutual love and understanding of one another...problems are rare and very far in between for them.
So, it's rare, sure, but not unheard of.
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Usually in stories, when people fall in love together, that's when the story ends. And if they fall in love in love earlier, there's always that third act misunderstanding that ruins things, but things get together.
But I think Joel and Michelle are fine the way they are. It's a nice change of pace to have two teens in love without some force that drives them apart only for them to get back together all the time.
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The adorableness and overall bubbliness radiating from this pic is simply too much!!
Delightful work here, my friend!
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I can sort of see where he was coming from, but I also think that he was completely wrong. I don't like it went a couple is forced: when the writer appears not to have looked at other options often implying a complete lack of thought in the characters. Drama can be a good way of avoiding that but I think that he made the mistake of thinking that it was the only way. (Though since I've never read the original comments I could be completely wrong.) I really don't see that though with Joel and Michelle since you have shown how they got together and things like that plus, they are both good separate characters in their own right.
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In agree with you, I actually hate it that everytime somebody hooks up with somebody the instantly get into trouble that theratens their relationship. Why mnot just let them be Happy together. So thank you for showing me that Love can work without constant Drama and other scrap. (Yes I said Scrap, no typo there)
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So, this guy didn't believe in the happy ending, huh?
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Aww, that's so sweet~ 
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