Find YOUR groove on the net. A case study of Dr. McNinja !!!!!!

Dr.
Mc
Ninja
!!!!!!

As an illegal wanderer on the frontiers of the net (hah! Nerd Glorification Alert!!!) one comes across many strange things. In a medium where one's creative potential is limited only by one's capacity to set up a web page (or find some willing sap to do it for you) you come across some pretty interestingly twisted minds. Very often, these guys provide art, literature and entertainment of a far higher quality than your average LCD inspired media publishing industries. To be fair to mass media, the morons who try to sell you Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo and rattrap pseudohighbrow DaVinci Code paperbacks (not to mention Pavitra Parker, what is that?) are just plain playing it safe. They're not going to print a million paperbacks, or sink 50 million into a movie to find out not enough people want to see it. So they go for the shotgun approach to publishing: just spray the masses with whatever crappy sentiment is going to stick to the largest number of them. The natural assumption made by most people after seeing something like Terminator 3 make it to the top ten box office hits for 2003 is this: Most people are stupid and will watch anything you throw at them.
Personally, I don't think this is true. I think everyone finds something in art that rings true to them. Or at least, they're capable of finding such a thing.

Which is where the net comes in. Its trite to say this now, but the net is still the single biggest potential threat to mass media in this day and age. Todays internet is created by and for individuals. Maybe there aren't too many of them, and maybe this particular bunch tends to talk about ninjas, star wars and RPGs a tad more than the rest of the populace, but its them who're keeping the internet alive.

And there's creation out there. Which is what I want to talk about. Witness the multiplicity of aspiring writers out there who're suddenly getting eyeballed (even if its only 4 or 5 pairs, at least someone's reading this). Witness the number of aspiring moviemakers out there who finally have a way to show someone the cool things they've made. Graphic novelists, radio jockeys, comedians, artists, designers, everyone can have a place here.

This is where Dr. Mc Ninja comes in. First off, what is Dr. McNinja? Extremely simple. He is. a ninja. doctor. An irish ninja doctor, so it seems (where does this fit into the 'Mc' angle, I have no idea, could someone please educate me?). The guy who created the free webcomic (Chris Hastings, inked by Kent.Archer.) decided to spin a story around his name on the SomethingAwful forum and ended up churning out this incredibly fun, tongue in cheek tale of a man reared by his parents to be a ninja (psychotic killer) and faced with the angst of being a doctor (compassionate healer). On the way you've got 10 year old 60 foot lumberjacks, animated hallucination-induced thanksgiving (katanakka) turkeys, megalomaniac Ronald McDonalds and Pirates (Arrrrrr). Its pretty freaky stuff. (all this in 3 issues!!)

Ok, is this too much information to fit into the average DC/Marvel potboiler? I'm sorry, did'nt mean to overheat your brain.

The point is, the net makes it possible for people like this to make their own incredibly strange contributions to the world of art/entertainment/whatever. And it makes it possible for randomisers like me to read weirder stuff everytime I hit the net (never get tired of it). And to write long rambling reviews about it.

Dr. McNinja guys, wherever you are, I hope you keep on katanakking.