Real Life a Real Letdown

hey look its a webcomics circle jerk

Some asshole just linked me to this webcomic called "Real Life". Now, if you have eyes, you can plainly see that the art doesn't even mimic real life. In fact, in the second panel, it looks like Mr. Orange Shirt's head is about to fall off. If you don't have eyes, then there's really no point in you continuing to read this article or this website, since you can't read. I'm sure there's some "software" that will read the words to you, but since you can't see the pictures, you're probably not a fan of Internet Comics.

Continuing with artistic atrocities, (Goddammit, I alliterated) I would like to point out that everyone's eyes are really too close together. This is just causing facial clutter, and makes me want to spread their facial features out with a rake. And what the hell is up with the neutral talking mouth looking like a duck? "HEY I AM QUACKING OUT WORDS AT YOU" doesn't seem true to Real Life. Then we have the lovely half-point perspective on the white fence in the background, which, I guess, is an attempt to acquire the Illusion of Three Dimensions. Placing two dimensional characters in a three dimensional setting just looks awkward, guy. Fortunately for you, you have completely failed at making me think the background contains a third dimension.

Now, you Real Life fans are probably yelling "The art isn't why its named Real Life, its about the character experiences" or some bullshit like that. I really don't know. I went one comic back in his archives before deciding to write this article. That was all I needed.

Okay jackasses, now Ill make fun of the writing if that'll make you happy. Looking at the dialogue, I see a bunch of lame, cliche Bawls jokes that might have been witty and topical 3 years ago. Okay, not witty, but at least topical. And the way its presented makes the reader think that the double entendres are being said unintentionally, what with the facial expressions and all. I think that was the approach he was going for. This is evinced by the last panel, if not anywhere else. Honestly, if this were real life, I doubt a group of twenty-somethings would unintentionally make lame jokes about testicles. In fact, if this were real life, panel one would be flooded with Bawls jokes. As would panels two and three. By panel four, we'd begin to see some of the jokes start to repeat, because most people don't realize what was said about four minutes ago, on account of all the weed they smoke.

And then at the bottom, I see this: "People who are speaking, in order: Dave Kellett, David Willis, Steve Troop, and Kristofer Straub." Horrible grammar aside, this appears to be some sort of webcomics sausage-fest. Perhaps Mr. Dean is giving "props" to his "homies" in the webcomics "hood." I, personally, think he's just sucking up to them so he can ask them for stupid ass favors at some upcoming convention.

After I started writing this article, I decided that I should read at least 5 comics back in his archives, to see if maybe this was just a bad writing job compared to the rest of his work.

It isn't.

All the comics I saw appeared to have either a lame set up, a lame punchline, or a horrible background, or any combination of these three things. Most were all of these three things. My 14-year-old emo japanophile half-brother could write a better comic. Wait, maybe he's the one who's writing it. The sense of humor seems about right, jumping at the most obvious (and overused) joke, while ignoring a plethora of superior options.

And don't get me started on all the begging--whoring, if you will--this guy is doing. I see a link at the top of his page that shows him holding a sign begging for money. And then there's a little box thingy halfway down asking for coding help from his readers. Now I can understand that if you're broke, you can't afford this, but such things as website design are usually done FOR MONEY. IT IS A SERVICE THAT YOU PAY FOR. Asking your readers to do it for free is just low. Sure, there are probably some people who would be willing to do it for free, flying through cyberspace, helping the poor peon who may have a bug or two in his software, but for the most part, he's stealing money from website designers.

Greg Dean, you cheap bastard, give me back my real life. Your real life sucks.