For your consideration, The Floating Lightbulb: A Webcomics Eureka. The Floating Lightbulb (or TFL if you're cool) is Yet Another Blog About Webcomics. It presents a viewpoint about the webcomics industry that has been seen a million times, and presents nothing new or insightful to up and coming talent. So why am I wasting my time with the god forsaken tripe? Well, to be honest I'm just bored and wanted to write about something that sucked.
TFL is, like most webcomics blogs, entirely full of shit. But the icing on this particular cake is that the blowhard behind TFL has not one, but two incredibly derivative-looking comics to his name. The characters are simplistic, stiff, and easily drawn by any number of interns who can follow a simple model sheet. Both comics have latched onto what I consider to be an Internet meme, namely that "Communist Russia is awwwweeeesssoooomme." Having one character that talks in a Russian accent might be acceptable. But when such a large portion of TWO comics relies on this culture, it kind of strikes me as nothing short of a weird obsession. The plots are incredibly shallow and short enough so that a reader does not need to be particularly invested in the comic. All in all, these two comics reek with the odor of corporate comics.
This is amusing because the latest post (at the time of writing this) is a warning to all cartoonists to be wary of any corporate presence trying to get their grubby hands on the sweet, sweet nougat that is a cartoonists Intellectual Property. But I feel his warning is a bit misguided. He cites a recent dispute between DJ Coffman and a publisher he signed with. The problem is that dummy didn't realize what he was agreeing to. Now I understand that not everyone is in it to be famous or rich, but some people are, and they're going to want to sign with a publisher at some point. Warning these people against signing ANYTHING is dumb; they just need to be wary of what they are signing, and probably have another lawyer read it. If agreeing to give up your IP is something you're willing to do, then go for it dude. Millions are made just for coming up with Intellectual Properties for fancy corporations to have fun with.
The second sign that 'Scartoonist' is a blabbering idiot is that he takes Dinosaur Comics WAAAAY too seriously. Many a bloggist has attempted to dissect the enigma that is Dinosaur Comics to unlock some deeper meaning, some kind of social commentary, or a sign from god. But it's just some guy writing funny ideas and putting them in the mouths of dinosaurs. It's not that hard to figure out. From his language we can tell that 'Scartoonist' is not fond of Dinosaur Comics, which of course makes him worthy to define the line between 'comic' and 'not-a-comic'. Here, he provides samples of alleged comics where there is no hand-drawn art, simply pictures taken by the 'cartoonist' or otherwise assembled and dialog being written for all the characters, and Scartoonist has decided to let his readers pick which ones count as comics and which do not. Except... No one commented. So either no one cares about the boundary of cartooning, or no one reads his stupid blog? Since he generally gets at least 4 or 5 comments on any other post, I'm going to go with the former.
"Hey! HEY! If you want your comic to get indexed by Google, you should probably talk to me. I own a Webcomic link site, maybe you've heard of it?" This is the kind of egotistical posturing and self-importance that I haven't seen since the likes of Eric Burns. "Hey, if you want to get on my GOOGLE RANK 6 Webcomic List, just email me with a link and I'll see if it's good enough." I mean, not everyone is necessarily good enough for a GOOGLE RANK 6 site, of course. Scartoonist has got to have a tough screening process if he wants to maintain his status in the webcomics world.
Finally, I will discuss the post that inspired me to make this one. I'm sure many of you have heard of Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad, a blog that stole my schtick, and coupled it with a line lifted from Dr. Zoidberg hisself. Mr. Scartoonist, once again, takes things too seriously: A full 2 months after the last post from YWBYSFB, Scartoonist received the memo and finally addressed John Solomon. Defending Dresden Codak of all webcomics, Scartoonist paints John Solomon as being too emotional, too personal, and too gosh-darn mean. "Solomon is not going to change a single thing except lower the level of discourse and undermine the hard work and dedication that many creators bring to their comics. He may even deeply wound someone fragile enough to be vulnerable to his onslaught." Sweetie, if there is someone so fragile as to stop making art because of the likes of John Solomon, then removing him from the picture is just going to delay the inevitable.
In the end, The Floating Lightbulb is just another webcomics blog run by a self-righteous blowhard, who is wasting his energy preaching to the choir. So I say it's time to replace him with something a bit more energy-efficient.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Floating Lightbulb: Time to Switch to CFLs?
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I'll be happy to hold you accountable, because you are a soft target and it won't take long. While it's apparent that the more subtle aspects of my comics are beyond your ken, it also escapes your notice that I am Russian and therefore might have a thing or two to say about Russians.
ReplyDeleteYou don't seem particularly knowledgeable about web comics blogs, either. There are only a handful of them dedicated to web comics because it's a thankless job and people like yourself make it harder. Sure, a lot of people take a stab at it and fail, but I don't see anyone else posting seven days a week and getting thank you mail. Some of my posts disappoint me, it's true, but the overall quality of reportage (without ever resorting to snarkiness) compares favorably with my peers.
Not all your readers will know enough about my work to recognize a sloppy, irresponsible skim job like you offer here, but I can debate you and defeat you on the merits of any charge you offer.
There is no corporate work that compares with mine -- it's in the tradition of old school Sunday broadsheets, a form that apparently eluded you.
The crank column has a certain appeal, doesn't it? You can lazily lob charges at of any sort at anyone any time, without having to work or think. The problem is, you only produce vapid sensationalism, quickly filtered out by your audience and leaving no marks on your target; in fact, you enhance us by sending us unexpected traffic. I have been producing and contributing to comics most of my life, and your resume is undoubtedly a jealous piece of confetti, eager to tear down what it cannot match or outwit. You can't touch me, babe.
The problem with your species is that you mine self-esteem by positioning yourself as a truth-teller against The Man, but you can't use grown-up tools, like informed analysis, logic and courtesy. You thrive on ignorance, half-truth and the fact that no one cares. Well, it so happens that I enjoy dismantling your kind, because it makes for good case studies in applied logic, and I will be sending you readers to examine the merits of your case versus mine.
Get your head out of your ass, read more than five frames of each thing you attempt to critique, and write your piece again. Then we'll see what you're made of. I think we'll find what we already suspect: you are a pretender, an imitator, and an also-ran, laden with baggage of all sorts.
Best of luck to you.
This is too much... you're not even out of high school and you make your mascot Ignorance is Death? Then you try to be cool by dashing off your eighth post in four years? Don't even bother replying, you're way over your head.
ReplyDeletethanks for biting.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately there's a reason there are so many failed webcomics blogs. It's because no one cares enough about webcomics to read a blog about them. I'm not writing a column to provide scathing but valid commentary about webcomics-related sites, and I'm not writing it to effect any sort of change. I'm merely doing it to see if egotistical people like you will take the bait and get angry about what I've said about them. And you did. Congratulations.
You might have something valid to say about "Russians" but surely you can do it without turning them into a big cliche? If you're stereotyping yourself then you probably have some self-esteem issues to work out.
If you've been contributing to comics your entire life, I'd expect you to be a little better at them. Unfortunately these comics look like something from the Social Studies notebook of a 6th Grader.
If you're getting a substantial boost in traffic from this blog, then your hits must be pitifully low already because NO ONE READS THIS (yet). So saying that I'm increasing your traffic is kind of a self-defeating insult. Additionally, you're not going to gain any substantial continued readership. A one-time boost in traffic is not going to help you much if you can't retain these idiots.
Your claim that I fail at the usage of "big-boy" tools such as "logic" is ironic considering that you've failed to consider these points. If you think you've "dismantled" me, I'd say you need to re-examine your "applied logic" skills.
Your second comment confuses me. I think you were high when you wrote it. Drugs are bad dude.