Easy Skankin': Sex Smells

A wise marketing guru once said 'Sex Sells,' which is generally true. Unfortunately, it requires a subtle touch to work appropriately, and the majority of amateurs fail to make it work. In the world of webcomics, this is no different. Novice artists attempt to use a scantily clad lady with obnoxious bosoms to advertise their webcomic. Sadly, it's a terrible representation of the comic itself, which is how readers will be retained, and the girl is usually drawn terribly due to a bone deficiency. When you cram the 'sex sells' mantra into your comic as hard as you can, however, you usually end up with an overfilled gonorrhea twinkie, where the excess just oozes out the ends.

Easy Skankin' reads like the comic of someone who missed the lecture in Marketing 101 where they discussed the 'Sex Sells' theorem, and she got the notes from the stoned dork who sits in the back of the classroom playing world of warcraft on his laptop. Artistically, it's a flop. The whole idea is to use attractive, accessible people to sell your product, not the gutter trash who produces or consumes it. What we are presented with is female characters whose shoulders are much wider than their waists (and I mean insanely so), elongated necks (the extra bones allow for increased rotation of the head), taffy-arm syndrome (muscles are REALLY hard to draw anyways), breasts that look like they were stapled to the ribcage (because that's where they are, right?), extremely low collar bones (which at least makes the low hanging breasts less weird), plastic molded hair glued to the scalp (witty aside), and all with the lingering stench of anime permeating the air.

Before attempting to pass a drawn female figure off as 'attractive,' the artist needs to at least have a grasp of anatomy approaching tenuous, and Andi Wrede's grasp is arthritic. The anime emulation starts her off on a bad foot, and drawing the figures solely around the waistline just leads to worse art. Trying to make the end result look sexy is like dressing up a manatee in a prom dress.

A corollary to the "Sex Sells" doctrine is that the product still has to be viable on its own. Trying to sell edible dynamite by putting it in a bikini is still not going to move a lot of units. A droll journal comic with a paper thin author-insert character which is more depressing when you realize that Easy Skankin' is more about what the author wishes her life was like, rather than what it really is, especially since it's not all that ambitious. Wanting to be found attractive is a common goal for many people, but what I find mockable is her desire to be able to mock others without feeling a sense of hypocrisy about it. Fortunately for my readers (or unfortunately) I feel no sense of hypocrisy about mocking anyone, despite their level of talent relative to my own.

Another marketing tip for Andi Wrede: Supply and Demand only works when you charge for your product. Artificially increasing demand by lowering supply isn't something I'd advise for a free webcomic. Your webservers producing an "Internal Server Error" every other time I hit that next button really isn't helping my opinion of your comic. Either shell out some extra money to keep it up more, or just take it down entirely, I'm just not a fan of the otherworldly ghostlike existence of a site.

When marketing a webcomic, one has to focus on the product's strengths and pass over the weaknesses. When the comic is nothing but weaknesses, use sex to sell your webcomic. And if you can't draw well enough to successfully draw something "sexy" then you might want to consider art classes. Easy Skankin' suffers from a vast array of problems, just as many artistic as not. Personally I'd advise you to stay away from this comic, or if you can't due to reasons of stupidity, make sure to use protection. Read more→

Webcomics Beacon: Dogs Don't Know It's Not Beacon (4 of 4)

As I stated yesterday, Circle Jerks in webcomics lead to artistic stagnation and undue popularity. It doesn't take a lot of talent to provide meaningful criticism, but webtoonists are often blind to their own faults. This excuse does not work when the creators regularly work with other terrible webtoonists to provide criticism to OTHER terrible webtoonists. Like the crossover I discussed yesterday, running a podcast is another great way for atrocious webcomics to Circle Jerk. The Webcomics Beacon is run by some of the most terrible webcartoonists I've covered with this blog. In fact, I told you those stories so I could tell you this one.

First and foremost, this podcast is way too long. Each episode is over an hour long, and if you're talking about webcomics for more than an hour, the evidence indicates that you just like hearing your own voice. I do like that these amateurs don't talk about one webcomic for the whole hour, but rather a certain trend or meme among comics, but the topics are still too broad and general. The hosts also have a tendency to go off-topic often, which contributes to the excessive dragging-onnery of this podcast. Additionally there is a lot of dead air and simultaneous talking, all of which could be remedied with a structured program and pre-planning. Having a set rotation for asking and answering questions would definitely cut down on the confusion, and figuring out what the best questions are and focusing on those would probably cut the runtime down to a reasonable half-hour.

The bigger problem is that the hosts may or may not be giving good criticism, but the comics made by the hosts undercut that criticism by being so terrible. The idea is, "If they can't use their advice to improve themselves, why should anyone else do so?" Of course, I completely agree with this argument. A better use for a group such as this would be to turn their critical eyes inwards, and utilize each other to improve themselves. Of course, since the entire point is to increase readership for everyone involved, the hosts are not going to turn too critical an eye (least of all towards their guests) resulting in a shallow and unchallenging show. The only criticism being offered is towards those who aren't on the show, giving off the impression that the Webcomics Beacon is used to signify an impending circle jerk.

The actual website is also a mess, and has so many circle jerking links that it overloads the reader with too much irrelevant information. There's an entire section devoted to Webcomic Milestones which just tells the reader which webcomics have completed an arbitrary number of pages or existed for an arbitrary number of years, with no discretion based on quality, consistency or continuity. Another section lists every single site mentioned in the week's show, no matter how passing the reference. While nice for those who find themselves asking "what are they talking about?", reducing the size of the section to only those sites talked about in depth would keep it from being overwhelming.

It is human nature to want to promote your creations, and the Internet is an easy way to do so. However the act of self-promotion often leads to introspection and growth after being rejected. When artists take the easy way out by promoting themselves through others and cutting quick deals often end up being screwed over by a bad deal. Some might get lucky, sure, but the best works are going to come from those who aren't relying on finding a great bargain, but instead put the effort into themselves and their own works. Creating new assets to bargain with, such as a podcast, are only indicative of desperation, and it almost becomes a spectacle to watch and see just when someone gets burned. While those who wish to build themselves up through their own merits should stay away, the Webcomics Beacon signals to all those who wish to dash themselves upon the jagged rocks. Read more→

PSI: The Pressure to Make a Good Comic is Often Overwhelming (3 of 4)

The Circle Jerk is a useful tool for aspiring webcomic creators to generate public awareness of their creation. By doing crossovers with other unknown comics, one can triple his readership (from 3 to 9). While decent webtoonists often have to carve their readership on the merits of their own skills and word-of-mouth advertising, these less-than-talented people can swap fanbases with others simply by trading cameo appearances. This is because fans of terrible webcomics have no taste, and as such, will be willing to jump onto many other terrible webcomics just for the sake of having something to read. After I dipped my hand into the vat of volatile chemicals labelled "A Pessimistic Sense of Inadequacy" (more commonly known as PSI) I was immediately overwhelmed with Circle Jerkiness, as well as other terrible offenses added for color and odor.

PSI is the tale of Gordon Freeman's retarded half-brother Fes and a giant anthropomorphic rat Ernst (also known as a 'furry'). Together, these two travel with some girl with no fashion sense and whose only ambition in life is to become a furry. If you're not aware, Furries are people who like to think they are humanoid animals, and are often sexually aroused by a dog walking on its hind legs. They are often the targets of ridicule and harassment, and liken themselves to racial or religious minorities, but in actuality are closer to the rednecks from that trailer park on the other side of town, except they don't run meth labs.

For the past 11,000 months or so, PSI has been engaged in a gigantic circle jerk with other terrible webcomics. Extending for 100+ pages, with only a few non-crossover pages in between, PSI has been building itself up through others. Known only as the "Crossover Wars" (and actually the project of another terrible webcomic entirely), a Circle Jerk of massive proportions engulfed all of the untalented webtoonists around and made a mess of everyone and everything. Ultimately, this was admitted to be irrelevant to the PSI plotline and clearly nothing more than a ploy to increase readership. The problem with convoluted and extended crossover appearances is that it seriously muddles the storyline. People often lose interest in the original plot, and potential new readers feel overwhelmed that they have to read the archives of not only one, but several comics just to understand what is going on, and will usually decided to get their kicks elsewhere.

Another travesty is the insistence of the author to use bizarre and confusing onomatopaeia. While it doesn't do the same thing as almost every other terrible use of onomatopaiea and simply use a verb like 'flip' or 'jump' or 'toss' to indicate a sound, the usage of undeterminable sounds such as 'fwash' or 'z-zoft' or 'strrrrrrrrrrack' will alienate the reader who is unsure how these unusual sounds are supposed to sound, and strike me as an attempt to be a unique snowflake by using sounds which no one else has used. The end result, however, is a fair amount of noodle-scratching by readers and great targets for ridicule. The art is also terrible but I'm getting tired of mentioning it in every post I make so I'm gonna let it slide this time.

Many people often confuse 'readership' for 'quality,' thinking that the more readers a comic has, the better it is. There are, of course, many counter-examples to this statement. Simply whoring your characters out for readers is a terrible idea, since most of the fans generated by this act are going to fall under the "retarded, delusional and way too emotionally invested in this terrible webcomic" category. These types of fans are festering tumors on the body of webcomics, creating a sense of legitimacy for that mutation of a third arm or ninth finger that we see so often. Crossovers lead to massive growth in these tumors which result in blockage of both personal growth and fresh readership. Perhaps by removing the crossovers and those that utilize them, such as PSI, we can help alleviate some of the pressure. Read more→

BetaPwned: Hey Look! I'm a GIRRRRRLLLLLL (2 of 4)

I've always felt that, in order to improve one's skills, an artist must surround himself with works greater than his own. If you're the best, however, all you can really do is keep on dragging on, or quit while you're ahead. When I decided to write about BetaPwned, I first saw this page and thought "Another fan of awful webcomics decided to make one of her own," but after reading through the archives I realized that she WAS surrounding herself with better webcomics, because BetaPwned is atrocious. That other part is still true, though.

BetaPwned is a journal comic, which is inherently terrible because no one's day-to-day life is so interesting that it is entertaining to outsiders. Exaggerating these events can sometimes work, but a bad writer will exaggerate the wrong things in the wrong direction and the result is just weird. But the biggest problem is that the author rarely feels the need to give the characters any depth. Since they're based on real people, they automatically have the depth they need and there's no need to explore the characters further. The end result is a main character whose only character trait is "girl." The only reason for such a simple character is to draw in male readers who don't even know what a girl is, and the author character shares "interests" designed to attract these nerdular readers, such as webcomics and video games, though these are not stated in anything more than passing reference.

The art is terrible, but that's true of almost every terrible webcomic. Frankly, I'm getting tired of saying it. All the heads are lumpy sacks of bowling balls, with facial features spread over it like jam on rye bread. The characters look like cardboard cutouts, which could easily be remedied by varying the line thickness used in inking (this is true for a lot of comics, if you're reading and this is your problem, give this solution a try! But leave a comment with a url of your comic before you do so I can make fun of how terrible it is now). The flatness gives a weird contorted look to many of the poses, since there's no way to judge depth. There are more problems with the art but I honestly don't feel like doing that right now.

The worst offense committed by BetaPwned is the existence of "Dear Diary" comics, which is just musings of the author placed on a notebook. These things have no business being passed off as "comics" and I consider it offensive to the readers that this happens. If you want to write your terrible musings and have people read them, get a twitter account. Most of the non-diary comics have more words than the diary ones, which is strange because I expect more words to be in a book than a comic page.

Most webcomics are created by amateurs who are only doing it as a hobby. They see webcomics they like and decide to follow suit. By emulating better comics, a hobbyist can find ways to improve his own skills. However, emulating terrible webcomics just leads to a shitty hobby comic. Surrounding yourself with sewage doesn't make you King of the Sewers, it just makes you smell terrible. BetaPwned could become decent, but first it's going to have to crawl out of the sewers. Read more→

The Best Of What's Left: An Astonishingly Accurate Acronym (1 of 4)

When creating a webcomic, there are a few things that the creator should flesh out before jumping in. First is the story. A well-reasoned plot can be the difference between an enjoyable read, and a clusterfuck of convolution and obfuscation. Second, is the characters. Not just who they are, though a properly fleshed out character is important, but also what they look like. Character designs need to be consistent and distinct, so the reader can tell who is doing what and possibly even figure out why. Otherwise you end up with Dominic Deegan. Securing these aspects before getting started is the first critical step of webcomickry. Most, however, jump the gun, and put up their work before it's sufficiently planned out. The Best of What's Left (or T-BOWL, as it calls itself) fails on both accounts.

The characters in the T-BOWL are some of the ugliest mutations I've ever been witness to. The protagonist, a man known only as "Future Paladin" (is he a paladin from the future? not yet, but assured to be, a paladin? a paladin made OF future?) resembles a chunk of uncooked dough molded roughly into the form of man. Above his head are some undiscernable blue half circles, indicating something only God Himself would know. Equipped with only his hammer, which also emanates blue half-circles (which can only be some sort of gas leak). Other characters are generally simple inanimate objects with giant teardrop-shaped blobs, which I presume to be eyes, that extend beyond the head. The creator, Aaron Lewis, often tries to convey motion with these crude characters, but often only manages to create further confusion and aggravation.

The story is somehow an even greater abomination than the art. Tenuous and unstructured, the most I can gather from the story is that there is some kind of paladin with water powers (I wasn't aware that paladins had elemental affinities) who hangs out with trees for some reason, which is strange since I would expect a water guy to hang out with rivers, lakes, and babbling brooks instead of trees. This is even more confusing since there is a tree paladin introduced later in the story. Lewis often tries to cram too much story into too little comic, then will turn around and use too much comic to tell too little story. The vast majority of pages are written to fill the page, and end as soon as the page is filled, resulting in a page that has no sense of completion, no concept of progress, but rather a feeling of emptiness. Any longform comic should be able to convey at least simple plot progression within individual pages. T-BOWL often ends up having serious pacing issues which could easily be remedied with a little premeditation, and forethought to where the story has been and where it is going.

Success in webcomics requires at least a familiar understanding of the fundamentals. Without this, no one can hope to make something enjoyable to others or even themselves, much less help others to correct their problems or provide suitable analysis of other comics. Aaron Lewis has managed to produce a webcomic with terrible art, plot, characters and pacing, inspired by every game Blizzard has made. Unless he's willing to go back and replan the entire comic, then restart from scratch, I'm going to have to say that The Best of What's Left should have remained in the toilet bowl. Read more→

Girl Genius: Crashing Through the Glass Ceiling Face-First

Webcomics are essentially the scum of the Internet. But it's true that not all of them are abominations. From the subsewers of mediocrity arises a few hypermutants which do not immediately offend the tastes of the rest of the mutants on the E-Zone. How do we determine which ones are good? Who the fuck knows. However, I do know what doesn't work, and that's placing the choice of "best turd" in the hands of other webcartoonists.

The most recent choice for "Most Outstanding Comic" is none other than artistic travesty Girl Genius. For those of you wondering what the hell a comic called Girl Genius could possibly be about, the plot synopsis page is not going to tell you a whole lot, since the author got to what I assume was an insignificant plot point (based on what I know of shitty webcomic authors) before giving up on writing what invariably would have been a lengthy and convoluted description of what every single page had contained.

From what I can glean, though, the story is basically your standard Mary Sue character who is suddenly thrust into a high adventure world based on talents and skills she was unaware of before. She has 2 or 3 companions to round out the skill set, and she has some kind of rival and some kind of nemesis to provide varying levels of conflict and is ultimately possessed by an even more powerful force than herself. Basically the premise of every anime ever. Slap a coat of Steampunk paint on it and it becomes Girl Genius.

Despite the uninspired and hackneyed concept, Girl Genius continues to show that it does not deserve "Most Outstanding" anything with its more than sloppy art. The artist, Phil Foglio, has never seen a human face in his entire life. Eyes are not teardrop shaped, though they ARE generally the same size, and heads are not the size of a softball. And most of all, facial features should exist on the actual face, not on a plane in front of or behind the face. Of course there's rarely any consistency between characters, since faces have a tendency to change their proportions in EACH PANEL. Of course this may be a result from not planning out the art very well; as seen in the last two panels, the features are often resized to accomodate the presence of other features at such an angle.

Ultimately, when one decides who should earn the label of "Most Outstanding Webcomic," one should consider whether the artist can draw a character consistently enough to convey the concept that his characters are not made of Silly Putty. The story should be something which isn't lifted from the annals of japan, and the writing (if it is a long form comic) should be conveyed clearly and concisely to new readers. When the winner of "Most Outstanding Webcomic" is a Girl Genius with an IQ of 60, one has to wonder what the comics who chose it are like. Read more→

Aikida: Girls Don't Really Play Video Games, You Know

There are a million and twelve gamer comics out there. They all fit the same archetype: Two guys playing video games on a couch with a token girl and a few gamer friends that only show up to be strawmen. So how does a gamer comic try to differentiate itself from the herd? Creative Jokes? Nice Art? Character Depth? No, those are ridiculous ideas. The best solution is to simply switch gender roles around. I mean, girls playing video games? That's hot.

Aikida follows all the gaming comic tropes, and repeats all the common jokes. MMOs are like crack, CEOs are crazy and irrational, most or all gamers are actually attractive, and of course the classic "playin video games on the couch." Of course since it stars TOTALLY HOT CHICKS instead of guys, it's completely new and innovative and should receive loads of positive attention from the webcomic community for breaking the mold of gamer comics, right? Not quite.

First of all, Josh Meinzer is gonna have to get better at drawing techniques such as "anatomy" and "consistency." All of the girls' boobs look like someone stapled water balloons to their ribcage. Female characters are astonishingly longwaisted. Certain facial expressions lead to them having a particularly more mannish jawline than they should have. The female poses are usually hideously unnatural, as the artist tends to have them hold their arms behind them like they're mentally deficient. Also his fire looks like someone painted a porcupine orange and then drew that while having a seizure.

Aikida has a very weird peculiarity. It jokes about pedophilia. Like, way too much. Creating a 17 year old who claims to be 15 just to torment male characters is a bit weird. Like it's a fetish. If it had been a one-off thing it would have just been a weird joke, but continuing to write the character as a woman-child drives this train through Creepyville and straight into Predatortown. Sending this two-inch tall childish girl (with quite a masculine jaw) over to frustrate the male neighbors may seem like a harmless prank, but having one character insinuate that he's going to masturbate after the incident is indicative of the author's pedophilic desires and gives us an unsolicited peek at the contents of his porn folder.

Aikida is simply another gamer comic trying break the mold with a layer of fresh paint. Creating a backstory for each character might be useful if the factoids were utilized ever, or in the case of the title character, followed at all when considering her appearance. A large-breasted, tan, and large-framed Irish/Japanese Canadian makes about as much sense as putting a jet engine on a laser printer. In addition, ripping off character details from Charles Schultz's most popular character is never a good idea. In the end we simply have a female version of the traditional gamer comic, a novelty gimmick that doesn't really add anything to the incredibly oversaturated genre. If you find yourself with this one, feel free to trade it in for something more innovative. Read more→