Happy Belated Birthday to Daria fan wyvern (May 23rd).

Some repairs to the contest page have been made at Glitter Berries. Check out the repairs!

A new Dariawiki has been created here by Martin Sylvester. Better bookmark the URL and follow the Paperpusher Message Board...that wiki URL might change!

At the PPMB:

*Deceleraptor posted the newest segment of "Esteemsters Reloaded" .
*Greystar posted the newest segment of "Daria 3059" .
* hey posted this new story about Jodie Landon.
* Ranger Thorne posted a brief addition to "Shadow of a Cynic".
* Angelboy added the newest segment of "Is It Smiting Yet?" .
* Richard Lobinske added Part 10 of "Daria von Doom: Succession Crisis" .

Added to the SFMB:

* The Great Saiyaman added three new pages to "Growing Pains" , which can be found in the hidden section of SFMB.

Added to fanfiction.net

Quinntessential by Quick-n-Popular
First Time by Nacotic

Daria fan art: A strange image from P. Lapierre (full-size image is here ):

Unfortunately, several real life events have conspired to make blog posts difficult right now. I expect the dust to settle shortly after June 1. CINCGREEN may step in between now and then, but I can only speak for myself.

In the meanwhile, question for the readers: Greybird mentioned in the comments to the previous post that he'd like links to Iron Chef threads. Would others like this? Please discuss.

Last but not least, Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Let the summer excesses begin!

...is a failure to keep on schedule. My apologies.

Of general interest: fan Angelinhel would like to know the variety of this snail:



She's tentatively identified it as a Giant African Land Snail, although resident biologist Richard Lobinske disputes this, noting that the shape of the spiral of the snail in question differs from that of the Giant African Land Snail. Interested parties, snail fanciers, heron keepers, and anyone with sufficient garlic butter can find the discussion here.

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Richard Lobinske has added part 5 to ‘Daria von Doom: Succession Crisis.’
• Angelboy has added a new section to his ongoing series, ‘Diary Entries.’∗

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

New fan art at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Which side is her best? S.C. provides mug shots of Quinn Morgendorffer for arresting officer Kara Wild:
  
  
  
  Click on image for color version.

Free image hosting by Image Shack.

Disorganization and a last minute invitation from a friend conspired to prevent me putting up Wednesday's post. So, with no further ado:

Of general interest:

• A discussion started by Wouter on songs forever linked in fans' minds to ‘Daria.’
• ‘Ex-Millennial Girl,’ a weblog of memoirs by a former stripper chronicling the dot-com era of excess in Manhattan, includes this brief tale of how the blog's author came by a new stage name:

  "I miss being ‘Brittany.’ though. That’s what I called myself in Orlando. ‘Brittany’ was a good girl. She didn’t drink too much and she didn’t use hard drugs. She was good."
  
  "But you don’t want to move backward - that’s what you do when you move into the past. ‘Brittany’ is dead, like it or not."
  
  "Well, I don’t want to be ‘Lexus’ or ‘Mercedes’ or some shit," I scoffed.
  
  We were watching MTV. Just them, the show ‘Daria’ came on, with its trademark opening song: lala LA la la, lala LA la la… "Ooh I know, Stef, you should be DARIA!"
  
  I laughed, but then thought about how appropriate that would be. A sarcastic, man-hating bitch. That was me!
  
  "Daria. ‘And now, on main stage… introducing DARIA!'" I said in my best impression of a strip club deejay. "Ha! That’s it. I’m Daria."
  
  Now I was prepared for Scores. At least I knew there would be no other Darias.

  The irony of a Brittany becoming a Daria may obtain only for ‘Daria&rsquo fans; but I think it's worth savoring nonetheless.

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Richard Lobinske has added part 3 and part 4 of ‘Daria von Doom: Succession Crisis.’
• FireWalkWithMe added part II of ‘And I Must Scream,’ a re-telling of Harlan Ellison's ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.’

New fan art at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• S.C. used his 3d model of Brittany as a skin in a first person shooter game. Here a frame from the game is used in place of the first person shooter Daria plays in ‘The Story of D’:
  
  S.C. also posted a complete video of a gaming sessions using the Brittany skin at youtube.com. For me, the highlight comes at 1 minute and 4 seconds in. I advise not drinking any fluids while watching.
• S.C. delivers on another fan commission, this time for hey: Daria and Jane join Andrea in Goth style:
  

Either image may be clicked to be viewed full-sized.

Hello. CINCGREEN here. You probably thought (or hoped) I was dead. I'm goofing off before a major exam tomorrow (!), so I thought I throw down another article.

Since I love baseball -- and computer baseball simulations, Bill James, sabermetrics and the like, I have created a new useless statistic called the "Daria Similarity Score".

Bill James, a baseball fan and historian, created the concept of a similarity score by taking the statistical lines from two players, starting off at 1000 points, and knocking points off for differences in statistics. He could then compare two different players and say, "the most similar player to Player X is Player Y".

I propose to do the same for "Daria". I created twenty categories. "Daria" qualifies in all categories. Any time a show qualifies in the same category, I give it a point.

One point if main character is an outcast.
One point if main character is female.
One point if main character is of noteworthy intelligence or academic achievement.
One point if character writes.
One point if character has an artistic friend.
One point for possessing a workaholic mom.
One point for possessing a crazy dad.
One point if main character has a younger sibling.
One point if younger sibling is considered more attractive than main character.
One point if the main character is attracted to a slacker.
One point if the program is in a high school setting.
One point if the character has a cheerleader/football player supporting character.
One point if one of the supporting characters is a black overachiever.
One point if the school has "insane" teachers.
One point if one of the supporting characters is a lecher.
One point if there is a clique of catty girls that cross swords with the main character.
One point if the setting of the series is described as "boring".
One point if the program is a cartoon.
One point if the program is a comedy.

If any show fits 19 to 20 of these categories, we would call it "unusually similar" to "Daria". I doubt such a show exists.

If any show fits 17 to 18 of these categories, such a show would be "truly similar" to "Daria". Likewise, I doubt there are such shows.

If any show fits 15 to 16 of these categories, such a show would be "essentially similar" to "Daria". Better chance here.

If any show fits 13 to 14 of these categories, it would be "somewhat similar" to "Daria".

If any show fits 10 or more of these categories, it would be "vaguely similar" to "Daria".


"Daria" vs. "Saved by the Bell"

1. Outcast main character: in no sense could Zach Morris be described as an outcast. He's more Ferris Bueller than Daria Morgendoffer. Also, he's very popular.
2. Female main character: uh-uh.
3. Smart: Well, he's smart in the sense of "cunning", but we're looking for academic smarts. Good at business, so might be good at finance, but a lackluster student otherwise. Did score high on his SATS.
4. Sarcastic: No. More a Dobie Gillis in breaking the fourth wall.
5. Writer: Nope.
6. Artistic friend: Has lots of friends, but none of them are artists. Sorry.
7. Workaholic mother: sorry, indulgent mother.
8. Crazy dad: dad is workaholic. Might give him a 1/2 point, since Mr. Morris is more like Helen.
9. Younger sibling: Nope, only child.
10. Sibling is cuter: See #8 above.
11. Attracted to slacker: Nope, attracted to Kelly Kapowski, a cheerleader, and married same.
12. High school setting: Yep, "Saved by the Bell" and "Daria" are both set at high schools.
13. Cheerleader/football star character: Yes, both in Kelly and in A. C. Slater.
14. Black overachiever character: We'll give this a pass. Lisa Tuttle is intelligent, but I don't sense any effort in her intelligence.
15. Insane teachers: yes, he's a "Principal Li" type, but does he really belong in the same group as Li, O'Neill, DeMartino, or Barch? Nope.
16. Lecherous character: We'll give SbtB this one because Screech fancies himself to be a ladies man. All of the other "half-points" above let me tilt the balance in favor of awarding a point.
17. Catty clique of girls: Nope.
18. Boring town? It's somewhere near a beach, but I don't know if any of the characters bitched about it. No points.
19. Cartoon? No.
20. Comedy: "Saved by the Bell" claims to be a comedy; I'll take its word for it.


Therefore, "Saved by the Bell" earns a Daria Similarity Score of 4 points. In no way can "Saved by the Bell" be considered simliar to "Daria".

Your assignment: which show, using the scale above, is most similar to "Daria"? Justify your response in the comments. (I would guess the answer would be "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but I'm not familiar enough with the show.)

Of general interest: PPMB newcomer coolio claims a book of the first season's scripts is in the works. Source: the books section in the Wikipedia article on ‘Daria.’ As much as I'd like to believe this, however, I am very suspicious since the Wikipedia artice was changed to add this ‘forthcoming book’ by one Coolio1794 on May 14th.

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Richard Lobinske continues his crossover of Daria with the Marvel universe with ‘Daria von Doom: Succession Crisis,’ which is up to part two now.
• Decelaraptor posted ‘Jeffy, Jamie, and Curly Joey.’

New fan art at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• MDetector5 posted this link to a flyer for a contest by the Daria Fan Club. Note: these links may require Deviant Art accounts.

New fan art at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• MDetector5 posted this drawing of Quinn in a bikini cooling off.
• TheArtistFormerlyKnownAs posted this drawing of Daria by SRA to announce the beginning of a new artistic project. (The other characters are part of that project.)

Art or fan art? A search of Photobucket for ‘Daria’ turned up this image, supposed to be part of user Tai197's album, but which doesn't show up when viewing the album in detail:



I don't recognize it from either The Daria Diaries or The Daria Database; moreover, the color of Jane's clothes are wrong. Does anyone know the provenance of this graphic?

Note: assertions regarding the significance of the new TAFKA/SRA art have been corrected. Our apologies. -- CG

From Yahoo! News: former ‘Daria’ animator Aaron Augenblick has created the first cartoon series exclusively for broadband, ‘Golden Age.’ From the article:

Augenblick Studios' Golden Age premieres on Comedy Central's "MotherLoad."

Golden Age is the first adult animated series to be produced by a major television network for broadband. Comedy Central has ordered 10 episodes of the show, which will premiere weekly on their broadband channel, MotherLoad.

Augenblick's vita, from the same aritcle:

Aaron Augenblick began his professional career working at MTV Animation on such television shows as Daria, Cartoon Sushi and Downtown. In 1999, he founded Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn, NY. The studio has produced a wide variety of works for television, film and the Internet. Clients include MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. In addition to commercial projects, Augenblick Studios has produced a string of critically acclaimed independent short films. Ramblin Man (2000), Drunky (2001) and Plugs McGinniss (2003) have been seen at film festivals throughout the world, including Annecy, South by Southwest, Florida and Slamdance.

Complete article.

Of general interest: a discussion of the general health of Daria fandom.

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• cyke added chapter ten to ‘New Masters of the Universe.’
• LOTR_Dan re-posted chapters one and two of ‘People Who Need People,’ and promises a third to come shortly.
• The Angst Guy entered the final installment of ‘Outcasts from Beyond.’∗ At approximately 90,000 (!) words, he believes it is the longest response to an Iron Chef challenge for a Daria fan fic.
• Richard Lobinske posted part 7 and the conclusion of ‘Falling into College 46—Family Collision.’
• SigDiff added part 9 to ‘In and Out.’

Items marked with an ∗ can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

New and updated fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Nutso Crazy has a new installment of ‘Marvel Comics Presents: Daria!’

Fan art: another view of the 3d Brittany figurine by S.C., along with the preliminary surfaces for the model:

First, a follow-up. Of the Lawndale High Wrestling Foundation video mentioned in the previous post, Wilder (Kara Wild) writes in a comment:

How are we supposed to view the video anyway? I click on one of the links and it gives me gobblygook. The screen cap suggests it can be viewed with Quick Time, but mine rejects the files.

All the .RAR archives must be downloaded and then uncompressed and concatenated with a utility that understands the .RAR format. I'm on Mac OS X and I used UnRarX, an open source tool. I don't know what Windows utility will work, but I suspect WinZip might do it.

I didn't bother checking Internet Explorer on Windows, but Safari on Mac didn't handle the .RAR archives properly: when the links are simply clicked, Safari displays the sort of garbage one sees when a text editor tries to display binary data, and when control-clicked to download, Safari added the extension ".txt" to the archives. Firefox on Mac (my default configuration) did the correct thing when the links were clicked, and downloaded the .RAR files to my desktop without appending any extention. I then simply dragged the first file in the list into UnRarX and it uncompressed them into a single video.

I promised CINCGREEN I wouldn't editorialize on Daria fandom here. Since nothing was discussed about religious issues such as technology preferences, I figure I'm safe to weigh in on Safari versus Firefox: Firefox on Mac sure looks and feels a lot more like a native Mac OS X application to me than Safari, to say nothing of working with a number of sites that make Safari choke.

Of general interest: Totalitarianate has created a petition urging The N to show Daria at a more reasonable time slot.

At the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Richard Lobinske added part 6 of ‘Falling Into College 46—Family Collision.’
• Kristen Bealer posted ‘Card Games.’
• Angelboy posted a new section of ‘Is It Smiting Yet?’

Fan art: another screen grab from the aforementioned Lawndale High Wrestling Foundation video.

It's not a holiday—at least as far as I know, because I haven't been visited by any teens escaped from Holiday Island saying they want to start a hip-hop-punk-electronica band. Then again, neither have Christmas, Halloween, or Guy Fawkes Day...

Of general interest: ‘Daria’ is now number 10 on the list of “Most Requested Unreleased Shows” at TV Shows on DVD. For some strange reason, one can only see this list if one is a registered member, so here's a screen cap of that part of the members' welcome page as of this writing:



I hope this does not violate any copyrights. If so, I'll remove it. But if I have to and you're reading this and haven't registered and voted for ‘Daria’—well, you know what your good deed for the day will have to be.

At the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• The Angst Guy posted chapter 30 (!!!) of “Outcasts from Beyond.’∗
• Richard Lobinske is up to part 5 of ‘Falling into College 46—Family Collision.’

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at The Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

Fan art:

A frame from Reese Kaine's video ‘The Lawndale High Wrestling Foundation:’



S.C.'s model of Brittany giving the cheer “We're number 1!”

To those who celebrate it (and those who merely want a reason to raise a glass), happy Cinco de Mayo!

Meanwhile...

At the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Richard Lobinske has added part 3 and part 4 of ‘Falling into College 46—Family Collision.’
• Decelaraptor posted part 5 of ‘Esteemsters Reloaded.’

At the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Napalm Kracken posted episode four, ‘A New Hope,’ of ‘The World According to Daria.’

Fan art: S.C. shows how the Fashion Club remains fashionable in the face of Ms. Li's school uniform edict:



As always, free image hosting by Image Shack.

I suffered some computer problems last night from which I'm only now recovering. I wasn't able to get a browser working until earlier today; hence the missing update. Provided I don't suffer another catastrophe, Friday's post will appear as usual. Again, my apologies.

Fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• The Angst Guy posted ‘A Knight to Remember,’ a two-part shipper.∗
• Richard Lobinske's ‘Falling into College 46—Family Collision’ is now up to part two.
Sleepless' ‘Yuki-Onna’ has now reached its thirty-eighth chapter!∗

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

Fan art also at the PPMB:

• Kemical Reaction posted what she describes as a “quick sketch” showing the real reason Daria botched dyeing Jane's hair.
• Greystar posted a screenshot of Daria, Jane, and Quinn as Sims. Full disclosure: I used to be addicted to the Sims and have somewhere on one of my computers the cheat code for giving a family money.

Art: an unused alter-ego of Daria as a wicked witch for Halloween from The-N's Daria fan site rendered in high constrast by Scissors MacGillicutty:



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