Brian Clevinger
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Brian Clevinger (born May 7, 1978) is the author of the webcomic 8-Bit Theater and the novel Nuklear Age. He is currently writing his second novel, a sequel to Nuklear Age known as Atomik Age, as well as pursuing other writing projects. He is known primarily as a humorist who tends to write jokes with long setups, many "call backs" or running gags, and who delights in playing jokes on the audience itself.
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[edit] Basic Information
Clevinger currently resides in Orlando, Florida, and lives with his girlfriend and their two cats. He attended college at the University of Florida for a number of years where he sought an English major to further his goal of becoming a professional writer. Due to what he refers to as "administrative incompetence of epic proportions," he was forced into the philosophy program against his will. He eventually left the university when his writing career began to take off just a semester before he would have earned his degree. He is regularly invited to speak at video game, electronics, and webcomics conventions.
[edit] Webcomics
- Further information: 8-Bit Theater
Clevinger's webcomic is 8-Bit Theater, hosted on his site Nuklear Power. The comic is very loosely based on the video game Final Fantasy and tells the story of four would-be fantasy heroes, known as Black Mage, Fighter, Thief, and Red Mage, along with the two "stalking" heroes White Mage and Black Belt, who set out to save the world from the embodiment of Chaos, but trip over their own stupidity in the process. The comic is done using 8-bit quality graphic sprites taken primarily from the Final Fantasy game or created by either Clevinger himself or Kevin Sigmund.
He has also created two mini-comics: Dynasty Memory was created in 2002 as a parody of the Dynasty Warriors series, and Field of Battle was created in August 2005 as a parody of FPS games in general, Battlefield 2 in particular.
[edit] Other information
Clevinger's primary claim to fame is 8-Bit Theater. He also wrote a book, Nuklear Age, and is currently writing its sequel. 8-Bit Theater reportedly takes up most of his time. According to Clevinger, he is supported primarily through income from Nuklear Power's advertising revenue, merchandising, and sales of Nuklear Age.
He is writing a print comic called Atomic Robo, with art by Scott Wegener.[1]
Another project he released that he's been working on (even though he's "not allowed to talk about it") is writing NPC dialogue for an RPG for the Nintendo DS.[2]
[edit] Humor
Clevinger has stated that "[his] favorite comics are the ones where the jokes are on the reader."[3] He is especially known for his anticlimactic moments. For instance, the protagonists of 8-Bit Theater, the Light Warriors, accidentally defeated one of their adversaries, King Astos of the Dark Elves, via a heartbreakingly awful taunt rather than the conventional epic battle. After the Light Warriors received their class change Thief got a red ninja suit. The next comic it changed to black, and his explanation was that it was always black. To support this, Clevinger changed every previous occurrence of the red ninja suit. A third example is when the Light Warriors fought Kraken: despite the "formula" calling for a long and dramatic boss fight, Clevinger decided to make a simple anti-climax, explaining on the forum that he did it to annoy the audience and was just following his self-destructive impulses.[4]
On Wednesday September 21st, 2005, Clevinger attempted a "hostile takeover" of Ctrl+Alt+Del.[5][6] The result was a brief outpouring of "resistance" in support of Tim Buckley, the author of the "seized" webcomic.[7] This aid kept coming even as the news posts on both sides became more and more outrageous, until it became clear it was a hoax. Though Buckley officially called it off, no cease fire has to date come from Clevinger.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Gum, Wade (July 29, 2006). Nuklear Powered: Brian Clevinger Q&A. Wizard Universe. Wizard Entertainment. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ "DS" (2006-08-16). Interview with Brian Clevinger (video). Digital Strips. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ Clevinger, Brian (2004-04-03). Teaser!. Nuklear Power. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ Clevinger, Brian (2006-09-11). #767: "What The Hell is This?" – Post #11. Nuklear Power Forums. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ Clevinger, Brian; Buckley, Tim (2005-09-21). The X-Box controller is large. Ctrl+Alt+Del Productions. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ Clevinger, Brian; Buckley, Tim (2005-09-21). Tragically |4M3. Ctrl+Alt+Del Productions. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ Clevinger, Brian (2005-09-21). Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Nuklear Power. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
[edit] External links
