Parody

by on January 28, 2013 at 10:09 am
Chapter:

I’ve talked about it on podcasts, I’ve talked about in our blogs and in our FAQ, but for the love of Lucas, we do not intentionally take anything from anyone else! We didn’t just show up last year, we’ve been doing this parody for four years now. Similarities happen because we are all working from the same source material. It’s called Star Wars. I probably shouldn’t be wasting my time with BMS, pouring the hours into it that apparently is not evident by the full color art, but I do it because Star Wars meant something to me in my childhood.

So, to spend five minutes on this page and make a snap judgment about us and voice those ill-formed thoughts without even investigating by, oh I don’t know, actually looking around a little longer at what we’re doing, is rude and makes you look like an idiot. This is why comments are moderated on this site. At least the spam bots aren’t accusing us of stealing.

Specifically, the backgrounds in this strip are either retouched and vectorized still images that I’ve taken from the movies themselves, or original pieces contributed by Thomas Gatto made from scratch with graphics software. To be told we’re taking Family Guy backgrounds is bizarre! I don’t even understand where that comes from?

I am fed up with being compared to Robot Chicken and Family Guy. BMS preceded Family Guy’s “Something, Something, Something, Dark Side” by 11 months and Robot Chicken had only just brought out their Empire Strikes Back parody when we debuted. But I scripted 300+ strips before the first BMS strip was ever published in February 2009, all the way through to the end of Return of the Jedi. If I could have made all of those strips in a few months and published 1 per day, I still wouldn’t have finished our parody by the end of 2009 because I’ve expanded on those strips as we’ve progressed. I’ve fleshed out certain scenes as new ideas came to us. We are currently at 450+ strips and only just finishing Empire Strikes Back.

If you THINK we’re ripping people off, then just go somewhere else, but be content that you didn’t pay a single penny to read anything here on this site, and that it wasn’t done by a production studio. We’re just two people, a husband and wife and BMS is something we squeeze into our week because it’s usually a rewarding experience sharing our take on Star Wars with the world.

So I moderate comments, but I still see them all. Little know-it-alls who don’t understand comedy whose first reaction is “why is there a Sandcrawler on the ice?”, to people who have nothing better to do than to nitpick logic holes in a parody that is supposed to make as much sense as anything Monty Python or ZAZ have produced. I know some of our gags aren’t hilarious, and that some only work for the uber geek Star Wars fan, but we have to go with what makes US laugh first and foremost. If you like it then stay on board. The person who made the comment is a first time commenter, so relax, it’s not you! In this case we were also being accused of ripping off Darths & Droids, another Star Wars parody webcomic. Incidentally, I don’t read Darths & Droids, but I hear it is good.

It seems, I either get used to these comments, or I stop Blue Milk Special and do something else.

I should add that last Friday saw over 8000 unique IP address visits and 30,000+ page loads in a single day, which I believe is a record for Blue Milk Special. Perhaps it is inevitable that we will get the haters coming in when we have such a busy day. A big thank you to all the comments in support of BMS below. You guys perk Leanne and myself up. Thank you!