This Week, a comic a day
Jun02
This is not a promise, but I will be attempting to complete a I Dream of a Jeanie Bottle Comic every weekday this week. So stay tuned for daily updates.
This is for this week only, I intend to go back publishing as I can, next week.
*fist-pump* YES!
Stock up on caffeinated beverages!
Woot! Yes! We love you (well *I* do!) Make a Jeanie mug or something and I will buy it to support you doing LOTS OF COMIX!!
Thanks for the support dusty. I am planning on making a Jeanie Mug that can be purchased on DA. But it will be at cost. So I won’t be making any profit from it. ( I want to make sure I don’t offend the TV gods in anyway)
If you like my other comic, SailorSun.org… there is a donation area on that comic.
and I vote!! (on TWC)
There is something I have to say now, before the Week of Strips, and it’s in the nature of a complaint.
Neil has been a victim almost from the beginning. First he got turned into a girl, then the Ubergenie mistook him for Jean and put the bottle around his neck and threatened him with serious punishment later, and now he’s had to make a presentation at work as this brunette girl. And except for exactly once losing his temper (Strip 57), Neil has been everyone’s patsy. Is Jean doing anything about meeting the conditions of the list? It is not shown. Is Ubergenie wising up and realizing that the brunette girl that he put the bottle on, is not the rogue genie? It is not shown.
Both Popeye and Olive Oyl are victims of Brutus. The reason that the hero of the cartoon is Popeye, not Olive Oyl, is because it’s Popeye who fights Brutus back. Heck, even Olive Oyl beats (ineffectually) on Brutus’s back, which is more than Neil does. I see nothing to indicate that Neil won’t wind up sentenced to eternity in a bottle as a shapely brunette girl, losing his job as well as his liberty, while Jean has a fine old time with no consequences for her actions. I’m sure that not what you intend, but it’s what’s there in the strips.
In short, I am losing respect for Neil, and this strip is ceasing to be funny. For the same reason that watching someone kick a whipped dog is not funny.
Look at Darrin and Endora. She makes his life hell, and he knows he can never win, but he always keeps struggling. If he didn’t try, “Bewitched” wouldn’t be funny, it would be pathetic.
I see your point and raise you that we’ll soon be seeing what Jean’s been doing as of late. There’s one more negative Neil has to deal with, which will be seen in the next comic, before things start to look up.
There’s two ways that you can write it so that “things start to look up” for Neil–
a) Some kind of _deux ex machina_ comes in and rescues Neil, who otherwise would remain in his hole because he continues to be a nonassertive wimp; or
b) Neil has a Popeye moment — “I’s taken all I can stands, I can’t stands no more” — and starts making Jean, the Ubergenie, and his boss and coworkers start treating him right.
I hope you go with (b). For one thing, you could end the strip with Neil not only a man again, but with some overbosomed women deciding that they like the new, take-charge Neil, and so Neil winds up with a harem for real. (As the red-haired coworker’s eyes bug out.)
Cool! Looks like you’re on a cartooning roll, with Sailorsun.org apparently back to 3 days a week as well.
I’m not quite in the same boat as GrimHost, in that I’m still willing to see Neil be put in increasingly difficult situations for the hope of a satisfying and climactic resolution. But he’s right that you can only take a gag or a character so far, and you’re sorta moving out on the thin branches now. Neil is at least persevering and dealing with his troubles in positive ways, but even us Tauruses have our breaking points (I tend to think of Neil as a fellow Taurus; easy going until pushed too far). Seeing his temper flare (or even better, erupt!) will give him some more depth and add to the story’s drama.
In the meantime, I continue to enjoy both your comics, and the “babes” therein.
His temper did flare, just a few strips back, even.
https://jeaniebottle.com/?p=47
I like the last fram “Do you want a beer ?”
Neil what ever you do DONT LOOK BEHIND YOU, you won’t like it
Is the Week of Strips over? Will we have to wait till after the solstice to find out what Lord Bats**t is going to do?
Now that the week is over, this comment page is superfluous.
I hope you don’t erase it, because the comments are making valid points.