Black holes don’t suck! They pull, just like everything else! And they don’t pull that much harder than anything else, they’re just willing to get much more intimate.
Honestly…Malaya’s horrible personality is a dead giveaway that she’s an artist.
Marsh Maryrose
There are lots of people with shitty personalities who think they’re great artists. Usually they’re wrong, but occasionally it happens.
I can’t speak to the visual arts, but most of the musicians I’ve ever worked with were pretty good people, and that includes some of the most talented I’ve ever met.
This idea that True Artists need to be assholes, and also the idea that all assholes are really Misunderstood Artists — both of those ideas need to die.
Nah. Professor Fonzarelli gives everyone an “aaaaay”.
Some1
You jest, but honestly, as someone who doesn’t take art classes…how do you grade art? Sure there can be art that is just objectively terrible, or fails to follow the assignment. But what defines A art vs B art?
Julez
My life drawing professor based grades more on progress rather than technical skill. How well you grasped the concepts and how much improvement you show over past attempts.
Aurora
Usually assignments like those focus of specific elements of drawing, and teachers will have a few points they expect you to hit. Stuff like good use of light and shadow to imply form, or variation in line to create texture. Of course, it’s easier with something like life drawing where mostly the goal is to represent a person on paper realistically. It gets weirder and more subjective when you get into stuff like installation art. Then a large part of your grade can depend on how well you defend it in critique and your accompanying write up.
vlademir1
My own experience of being graded in art classes suggests it’s mostly about learning the technical aspects of creating art with the type of class Mary and Malaya are taking,
Kryss LaBryn
Had an art teacher in high school who graded entirely on how much I sucked up, completely ignoring quality, volume of output, percentage of finished work versus half-assed scribbles, etc.
Improved an entire letter grade (up to an A) just by switching to saying, “Oh! Yes! I see where I went wrong! Thank you so much for showing me!” instead of arguing my decisions, despite concurrently running out of fucks to give and my vastly lowered and inferior output manifestly demonstrating that.
Art is subjective, is what I mean to say. :/
BigDogLittleCat
Sounds like my “drawing” teacher in college. He was all about drawing being “passionate” and “energetic” and “exciting” while poor deluded me was trying to make it look like what I was looking at.
When my neighbor tried to defend him I bet her that he would looove my next piece and say specifically XYZ about it, and then drew something specifically calculated to get that response. Which it did.
After that, the game was to pick a theme and draw something to get him to say that.
Pissed me off because I already understood composition. I took the damn class to learn how to *draw*.
HeySo
Art (of any sort, from Drawing to Photography) grading is primarily based on comprehension of mathematical concepts- straight lines, angles, strong shaping, good contrast, and a buncha specific concepts like rule of thirds and golden ratio. As such, it’s graded much like anything else mathematical is [ie, by how well you adhere to the formulas provided]. Once you get those basics down (and judging by the artwork thrown in the trash, they’re still working on those), it becomes a matter of how well you can make the art convey what you’re intending it to convey, and how well you grasp (and can evidence grasping) more abstract artistic concepts or specific forms of art. For example, if the aim is comprehension of styles, and you can evidence understanding what defines surrealism and cubism, and can adequately portray both, then that’s a “Pass”, while confusing the two would be a “Fail”. Evidencing special creativity or wit or polish with your artwork is nice, and gives you a stronger portfolio, but typically doesn’t matter for basic art grading. [In much the same way that my coding a fully functioning database and login system and account system for an online forum didn’t give me extra credit in a basic HTML class (stupid school not letting me test out of it..) where the assignment was just to do the HTML part of a forum. As long as you can meet the goal assigned, you get a pass; anything past that is just for your own benefit.]
In short, instructional Art critique is *not* subjective, it’s about the student adhering to mathematical concepts and meeting basic goalpoints. Once it gets into the matter of subjectivity, the student should already have earned a “Pass” (though, as noted above, they may be required to explain their approach, so as to evidence their comprehension of the subject).
With that in mind, art teachers I had typically went with an A-C-F system, matching to “Understands the Concept”, “Attempted the Work”, and “Didn’t turn in the Work”. It’s been a *long* time, but I’m not sure Bs were ever really given out in any of my art classes, other than for Art History and the like.
Coding is really my favorite comparison point for it-
You can make the nicest, prettiest, most efficient code nesting and databasing design and so forth, and put it all to a lovely UI design, but the assignment itself is going to be something much more fundamental, like “Have a database that stores logins and can call up a user’s favorite TV shows”. For Art, that’d be something like “Use shading to give the right impression of depth to match the concept at hand”. Your style is less important than being able to meet the mechanical objective.
So, in summary, Art is like any other scholastic field- they want you to evidence grasping basic concepts of the field, and show basic utility in applying those concepts. You only really start getting graded subjectively once you enter competitive settings.
All artistic fields work off similar principles, from Music to Figure Skating- the amount of complexity within your presentation and the control you have over form.. there are technical elements that can be assessed for all of it. Subjectivity only comes in when skill is on similar tiers, and has passed basic mechanical requirements.
localinactivist
Agree. When I took C programming classes I had already been coding Perl professionally for a decade. I kept running up against an urge to make my code bulletproof and production-ready. If the assignment was to read records in from a flat file I’d think “This won’t scale. I should be using a database.” I’d want to create production-level functions to sanitize inputs to make sure someone didn’t try to make their username “\n\n\n”. I’d also strain on all the assignments that used string parsing, which was about half of them. I’d think “This is all string parsing and manipulation and it doesn’t need to be fast. I wouldn’t do this in C, I’d do it in Perl. And if I did have to do it in C I’d use one of the hundreds of existing string function libraries so I wouldn’t have to code all the weird corner cases.” I had to learn to stifle the urge to show off and just do the assignment. “Damn it, I gotta get this Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion assignment finished so I can get back to work and write that REST API test harness!”
Oz
When I graded intro to programming assignments for engeneering classes, we would grade on things that could be considered “subjective”, such as code neatness and readability and documentation. We had grade levels like F-unreadable code, does not compile, C-compiles and attempts to solve the problem, or readable code that dos not compile due to small mistakes, B-runs without errors, A-actually does the thing it was supposed to do, readable code. But we would give small bonuses for creativity and organization. I once had a student write all the output messages in pirate speech. I think it’s worth something.
Nowadays I sometimes grade the R course assignments where students are asked to analyse data and explain what they found, and at the end they pick a problem that interests them and make a function to solve that problem. It’s all highly subjective. We have to grade according to how often the code crashes and how well the function works, but depending on how hard the proposal was and how generic and how cool it was. We have to evaluate how much the student learned and how hard they tried. There’s a technique to it, but I wouldn’t say it’s objective.
All in all I think it must be pretty similar to how art assignments are graded. Even if when I was in art classes I had no idea whatsoever of how to get a good grade.
Chris Phoenix
R programmers, of course, write everything in pirate speech, so they all get an extra credit bonus.
She might have to fight Sarah for that name. And Malaya seems more like the random bystander who insults the hero when they’re trying to save people than a hero to me.
… I don’t think it occurred to me that Carla wouldn’t be referring to Sal, who she theoretically likes, as such.
showler
Since when does Carla not like Sal? Their talk on the steps seemed fairly pleasant.
showler
Dangit, misread “as such” as “as much”. Sorry.
Cattleprod
Heh, putting in ‘theoretically’ might have been overdoing it, but misanthropy seems to be one of Carla’s defining traits so I wasn’t sure if I should be randomly saying she likes someone. But that misanthropy is why it didn’t faze me when I thought she was talking to Sal there. Some people say (word that isn’t actually bongo) as a term of endearment.
First panel does look like she’s interested in Malaya’s artwork. Plus, she’s being WAAAAY too meek and quiet. Agree with Mollyscribbles – she’s definitely planning to swipe it.
Mary seems to have that “will she notice me?” look. She’s following Mal around like a puppy, and blushing. Has she found her -Gasp!- girl-crush, at last???
Yeah, but why? Its not like she could turn in Malaya’s art as her own, given that any art professor worth a damn would figure somethings up pretty much instantly, and its not like she can blackmail Malaya with drawings.
I mean, that art is already graded. Seems like Mary can’t believe that Malaya is that good at art while not being particularly enthusiastic about it.
Kris
Or maybe Mary actually cares about her art enough to recognize Malaya is better at it, and is thus trying to learn from her old sketches. Sketches Malaya just threw away, and thus obviously doesn’t care about. It would be some nice positive character development, but I’ve been burned before. Money’s on her somehow cheating with old graded homework. But I choose to hope!
Mary acknowledging someone else being better than her at something would be a complete 180° out of nowhere
Kris
Exactly why I doubt it will happen. Trying to cheat seems obviously stupid though? Especially tracing already graded homework. Sooo what’s up? *shrug*
Mollyscribbles
Maybe pin it to a corkboard with string and stuff like a crazy conspiracy theorist, figuring that by analyzing aspects that met with approval she’d be able to replicate them and game the system?
No no. Three-dimensional string maze, art assignments folded into paper airplanes and little origami animals that slide along the strings in various directions. Mary in the center plucking her web of deceit and confusion.
–Dave, and then it all collapses around her, one wacky beat panel, after which we get a top-down view showing the string now spells out CARLA! in cursive
Peculiar that to get here I had to click through an ad for a remedy for overactive bladder issues.
*plays the Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” on the hacked Muzak*
151 thoughts on “Normalize”
Ana Chronistic
no, just the ones with intensely hateful gravity
Arawn
But what you’re saying is there’s some attraction there. . . I’ll… see myself out.
HeySo
Yeah, there is. That’s why it sucks so hard.
No Name
Black holes don’t suck! They pull, just like everything else! And they don’t pull that much harder than anything else, they’re just willing to get much more intimate.
Doctor_Who
Wow, Malaya is very good. Just look at how well she drew those letter As.
Bicycle Bill
No, I think those are legit grades. The instructor actually did seem to be impressed with Malaya’s efforts.
Kris
Honestly…Malaya’s horrible personality is a dead giveaway that she’s an artist.
Marsh Maryrose
There are lots of people with shitty personalities who think they’re great artists. Usually they’re wrong, but occasionally it happens.
I can’t speak to the visual arts, but most of the musicians I’ve ever worked with were pretty good people, and that includes some of the most talented I’ve ever met.
This idea that True Artists need to be assholes, and also the idea that all assholes are really Misunderstood Artists — both of those ideas need to die.
Walky_Talky
Nah. Professor Fonzarelli gives everyone an “aaaaay”.
Some1
You jest, but honestly, as someone who doesn’t take art classes…how do you grade art? Sure there can be art that is just objectively terrible, or fails to follow the assignment. But what defines A art vs B art?
Julez
My life drawing professor based grades more on progress rather than technical skill. How well you grasped the concepts and how much improvement you show over past attempts.
Aurora
Usually assignments like those focus of specific elements of drawing, and teachers will have a few points they expect you to hit. Stuff like good use of light and shadow to imply form, or variation in line to create texture. Of course, it’s easier with something like life drawing where mostly the goal is to represent a person on paper realistically. It gets weirder and more subjective when you get into stuff like installation art. Then a large part of your grade can depend on how well you defend it in critique and your accompanying write up.
vlademir1
My own experience of being graded in art classes suggests it’s mostly about learning the technical aspects of creating art with the type of class Mary and Malaya are taking,
Kryss LaBryn
Had an art teacher in high school who graded entirely on how much I sucked up, completely ignoring quality, volume of output, percentage of finished work versus half-assed scribbles, etc.
Improved an entire letter grade (up to an A) just by switching to saying, “Oh! Yes! I see where I went wrong! Thank you so much for showing me!” instead of arguing my decisions, despite concurrently running out of fucks to give and my vastly lowered and inferior output manifestly demonstrating that.
Art is subjective, is what I mean to say. :/
BigDogLittleCat
Sounds like my “drawing” teacher in college. He was all about drawing being “passionate” and “energetic” and “exciting” while poor deluded me was trying to make it look like what I was looking at.
When my neighbor tried to defend him I bet her that he would looove my next piece and say specifically XYZ about it, and then drew something specifically calculated to get that response. Which it did.
After that, the game was to pick a theme and draw something to get him to say that.
Pissed me off because I already understood composition. I took the damn class to learn how to *draw*.
HeySo
Art (of any sort, from Drawing to Photography) grading is primarily based on comprehension of mathematical concepts- straight lines, angles, strong shaping, good contrast, and a buncha specific concepts like rule of thirds and golden ratio. As such, it’s graded much like anything else mathematical is [ie, by how well you adhere to the formulas provided]. Once you get those basics down (and judging by the artwork thrown in the trash, they’re still working on those), it becomes a matter of how well you can make the art convey what you’re intending it to convey, and how well you grasp (and can evidence grasping) more abstract artistic concepts or specific forms of art. For example, if the aim is comprehension of styles, and you can evidence understanding what defines surrealism and cubism, and can adequately portray both, then that’s a “Pass”, while confusing the two would be a “Fail”. Evidencing special creativity or wit or polish with your artwork is nice, and gives you a stronger portfolio, but typically doesn’t matter for basic art grading. [In much the same way that my coding a fully functioning database and login system and account system for an online forum didn’t give me extra credit in a basic HTML class (stupid school not letting me test out of it..) where the assignment was just to do the HTML part of a forum. As long as you can meet the goal assigned, you get a pass; anything past that is just for your own benefit.]
In short, instructional Art critique is *not* subjective, it’s about the student adhering to mathematical concepts and meeting basic goalpoints. Once it gets into the matter of subjectivity, the student should already have earned a “Pass” (though, as noted above, they may be required to explain their approach, so as to evidence their comprehension of the subject).
With that in mind, art teachers I had typically went with an A-C-F system, matching to “Understands the Concept”, “Attempted the Work”, and “Didn’t turn in the Work”. It’s been a *long* time, but I’m not sure Bs were ever really given out in any of my art classes, other than for Art History and the like.
Coding is really my favorite comparison point for it-
You can make the nicest, prettiest, most efficient code nesting and databasing design and so forth, and put it all to a lovely UI design, but the assignment itself is going to be something much more fundamental, like “Have a database that stores logins and can call up a user’s favorite TV shows”. For Art, that’d be something like “Use shading to give the right impression of depth to match the concept at hand”. Your style is less important than being able to meet the mechanical objective.
So, in summary, Art is like any other scholastic field- they want you to evidence grasping basic concepts of the field, and show basic utility in applying those concepts. You only really start getting graded subjectively once you enter competitive settings.
All artistic fields work off similar principles, from Music to Figure Skating- the amount of complexity within your presentation and the control you have over form.. there are technical elements that can be assessed for all of it. Subjectivity only comes in when skill is on similar tiers, and has passed basic mechanical requirements.
localinactivist
Agree. When I took C programming classes I had already been coding Perl professionally for a decade. I kept running up against an urge to make my code bulletproof and production-ready. If the assignment was to read records in from a flat file I’d think “This won’t scale. I should be using a database.” I’d want to create production-level functions to sanitize inputs to make sure someone didn’t try to make their username “\n\n\n”. I’d also strain on all the assignments that used string parsing, which was about half of them. I’d think “This is all string parsing and manipulation and it doesn’t need to be fast. I wouldn’t do this in C, I’d do it in Perl. And if I did have to do it in C I’d use one of the hundreds of existing string function libraries so I wouldn’t have to code all the weird corner cases.” I had to learn to stifle the urge to show off and just do the assignment. “Damn it, I gotta get this Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion assignment finished so I can get back to work and write that REST API test harness!”
Oz
When I graded intro to programming assignments for engeneering classes, we would grade on things that could be considered “subjective”, such as code neatness and readability and documentation. We had grade levels like F-unreadable code, does not compile, C-compiles and attempts to solve the problem, or readable code that dos not compile due to small mistakes, B-runs without errors, A-actually does the thing it was supposed to do, readable code. But we would give small bonuses for creativity and organization. I once had a student write all the output messages in pirate speech. I think it’s worth something.
Nowadays I sometimes grade the R course assignments where students are asked to analyse data and explain what they found, and at the end they pick a problem that interests them and make a function to solve that problem. It’s all highly subjective. We have to grade according to how often the code crashes and how well the function works, but depending on how hard the proposal was and how generic and how cool it was. We have to evaluate how much the student learned and how hard they tried. There’s a technique to it, but I wouldn’t say it’s objective.
All in all I think it must be pretty similar to how art assignments are graded. Even if when I was in art classes I had no idea whatsoever of how to get a good grade.
Chris Phoenix
R programmers, of course, write everything in pirate speech, so they all get an extra credit bonus.
AnvilPro
Malaya’s superhero name would definitely be “Miss-Anthropic”
Mada
Miss Anthrope is already the name of a Captain Underpants character.
Dark
Wow…
In all the years of reading Captain Underpants, I never got that joke.
adjudicus
Same here! I always assumed that that was a perfectly normal name
wwwhhattt
And also a game designer (ok, she’s Anna Anthropy, but close enough)
Deanatay
Whenever Anna gets tired of being ‘Chronistic’, she can switch to ‘Thrope’.
Keulen
She might have to fight Sarah for that name. And Malaya seems more like the random bystander who insults the hero when they’re trying to save people than a hero to me.
shadowcell
“Outta My Way, You Vaginal Discharge”
yet another great name for this volume of Dumbing of Age!
Theluxland
I legit choked on my water. It was simply perfect.
Psyme
It is simply the perfect response to “Faz is great”
Reltzik
….. technically accurate? For some meanings of the word “discharge”?
…. I know I shouldn’t be parsing this language, but I CAN’T STOP.
Stu
Isn’t that an accurate term for EVERYONE that wasn’t a C-section?
Rachel
In Dutch you can say “Kutkind”; which is an insult to mean annoying child. But it can also be literally translated to “conga child”.
AGV
I read that as “vaginal disgrace” at first
BigDogLittleCat
That works too. The vagina that released Mary on the world should be ashamed.
Sporky
Mary, Malaya, Carla and Sal all within a few feet of each other?
I don’t predict this going well.
JessWitt
The free-for-all to end is all.
Deanatay
I predict it will end with black eyes and missing teeth.
So, VERY well!
Yumi
Well, this nicely answers the question of what day it is.
And yay, Carla!
Needfuldoer
It’s Tuesday, October 12.
David DeLaney
… but for us, it was Tuesday?
–Dave, for me it actually is, catchin’ up here after a prolonged squawk
Cattleprod
I feel like the other characters don’t actually know Mary’s there and she’s always hidden behind something when they glance in her direction.
Doctor_Who
So Carla’s not speaking to her in panel four?
Was…was there some actual vaginal discharge in her way?
Cattleprod
… I don’t think it occurred to me that Carla wouldn’t be referring to Sal, who she theoretically likes, as such.
showler
Since when does Carla not like Sal? Their talk on the steps seemed fairly pleasant.
showler
Dangit, misread “as such” as “as much”. Sorry.
Cattleprod
Heh, putting in ‘theoretically’ might have been overdoing it, but misanthropy seems to be one of Carla’s defining traits so I wasn’t sure if I should be randomly saying she likes someone. But that misanthropy is why it didn’t faze me when I thought she was talking to Sal there. Some people say (word that isn’t actually bongo) as a term of endearment.
Reltzik
Nonono, that’s Dina.
Passchendaele
Huh, Sal’s shirt is very familiar (I’m not sure if she was wearing it earlier and I didn’t notice, which is probably the case.)
Cholma
You probably recognize it from either a preview post or character sheet post that Willis did a few months ago.
Passchendaele
True! I think I also recognize it from IW!, though I’m not 100% sure.
Jess
The misanthropic black hole line is the best simile I’ve read in…possibly in forever. Nice going, Sal, I’m laughing.
DarkoNeko
is…is Mary ostensibly trying to befriend Malaya ?
Doctor_Who
Naw, she just wants to slay her and consume her heart, thus absorbing her artistic abilities.
SgtWadeyWilson
That’s what I’ve been doing wrong! If only I’d known this before the years of practice…
Mollyscribbles
I’m guessing she’s going to try to swipe the discarded artwork from the trash to try and figure out what the hell is so good about it.
Deanatay
First panel does look like she’s interested in Malaya’s artwork. Plus, she’s being WAAAAY too meek and quiet. Agree with Mollyscribbles – she’s definitely planning to swipe it.
jeffepp
Mary seems to have that “will she notice me?” look. She’s following Mal around like a puppy, and blushing. Has she found her -Gasp!- girl-crush, at last???
Linkletter
I honestly think it looks like she’s just stealing her art from the trash bin.
Some1
Yeah, but why? Its not like she could turn in Malaya’s art as her own, given that any art professor worth a damn would figure somethings up pretty much instantly, and its not like she can blackmail Malaya with drawings.
Tacos
I mean, that art is already graded. Seems like Mary can’t believe that Malaya is that good at art while not being particularly enthusiastic about it.
Kris
Or maybe Mary actually cares about her art enough to recognize Malaya is better at it, and is thus trying to learn from her old sketches. Sketches Malaya just threw away, and thus obviously doesn’t care about. It would be some nice positive character development, but I’ve been burned before. Money’s on her somehow cheating with old graded homework. But I choose to hope!
Fart Captor
Mary acknowledging someone else being better than her at something would be a complete 180° out of nowhere
Kris
Exactly why I doubt it will happen. Trying to cheat seems obviously stupid though? Especially tracing already graded homework. Sooo what’s up? *shrug*
Mollyscribbles
Maybe pin it to a corkboard with string and stuff like a crazy conspiracy theorist, figuring that by analyzing aspects that met with approval she’d be able to replicate them and game the system?
David DeLaney
No no. Three-dimensional string maze, art assignments folded into paper airplanes and little origami animals that slide along the strings in various directions. Mary in the center plucking her web of deceit and confusion.
–Dave, and then it all collapses around her, one wacky beat panel, after which we get a top-down view showing the string now spells out CARLA! in cursive
Freemage
Maybe she’d steal it to trace?
Stephen Bierce
Peculiar that to get here I had to click through an ad for a remedy for overactive bladder issues.
*plays the Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” on the hacked Muzak*
syd
T͜͝Ų͡E̕͡S͝D̀҉͏A̧Y͡͝ ̵A͝͠͡G̢A͘I̶N
͟N̛O ̛P̵R̀OB̛L͏E̛͠͝Ḿ͠
Plasma Mongoose
Are you trying to make Malaya best girl? Cos this is how you make a best girl.
cbwroses
Malaya and best girl do not remotely go together except for a few people with…different tastes in favorite characters.
BBCC