Bizarre Uprising: Manga That's Just Not Good

You Have Entered Webcomic Hell (There is no Webcomic Heaven)

The great thing about the Internet is that it has afforded thousands of Japanophiles easy access to their beloved animes and mangas. Wait, did I say "great thing"? I meant "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing." Most nerds and geeks these days have an unhealthy obsession with animes and mangas to the point where anything that does not come from Japan is utter trash. However this does not thwart their attempts at making their own "manga-style" comics. They will trace, copy and reference their favorite artists until they're blue in the face, but no matter how much they try, these amateur cartoonists will never gain a fraction of the skill utilized by their inspirations, which is already a pretty low bar most of the time. Occasionally, one of these Junior American Manga Artists will take their hobby past the point where most give up (6 pages), and wrongly consider themselves talented.

Bizarre Uprising (NWS for Nerdy Sex Vampires) is a terrible comic aimed at 14 year old boys who want to be Japanese. Plagued with Violence, Sex, Vampires, and the Inability to Expand a Plot Point Cohesively, it is the quintessential interpretation of Japanese mangas by American readers. The story follows a nerdy 16-year-old boy named Mitsu as he tries to make it through high school with his nerd friends, while somehow getting to bang all the girls he ever wants. Oh yeah, he's also a vampire who hates other vampires because they want to kill all humans and fights them a lot. This is certainly a new and fresh story that has certainly not been told anywhere before.

A V-V-V-V-V-VAMPIRE!

Although Mitsu serves as the primary author-insert, with his fancy vampire powers and ability to seduce lesbians, but his two friends work well as author-inserts, too. Mitsu's best friend is an overweight, virgin hypernerd who is more obsessed with his animes than actually learning how to talk to a girl. I'll give you a hint, it's not by doing this. The other friend is an ex-nerd turned hyper-sexy womanizer who has casual sex with every girl in the high school. His trainer is the school's mascot, some kind of bizarre pig thing, who turns out to be his father, who turns out to be the King of Vampires. Never mind how ridiculous that sounds, I merely ask, "Why a pig?" Well, this is clearly the influence of too many episodes of Invader Zim.

The writer for Bizarre Uprising needs some practice. A lot of it. He has a tendency to miss connecting crucial plot points. Most points are danced around, and when the action comes along, it's skipped as often as possible, resulting in a confusing and easily misunderstood plot thread. Fortunately it does not dwell on any point for too much time, dragging it out, but Bizarre Uprising fails to completely expand an event sufficiently, which is generally just as bad. Leaving your readers scratching their heads is hardly what I'd consider effective writing. With an update schedule as sparse as "once a week" you need to make sure that every update is used to its potential.

Artistically, Bizarre Uprising is bad (though not as bad as most of the other subjects I've covered, I only threw up a little bit). Character designs feel like the strange hybrids of Generic Anime, Jhonen Vasquez, and Walt Disney. All figures have a tendency to lean to the artist's right, which is indicative of a lack of structure, form, and refinement, and basically just means that the artist sketched everything out in an hour during gym class, and then inked during lunch. A little bit more effort in the pencilling phase could correct the skeletal disfigurement that leads them to "lean to the right." The characters are also often plastered with simple-minded expressions, that betray deeper emotions to simpler ones such as "worried" or "happy."

Revelation: I'm In A Terrible Webcomic

There are massive splash pages between "chapters" (if you can really call them that, since they lack a complete episodic event) which wouldn't be bad if they didn't force readers to wait an entire week for the chapter to start. Manga has a strong aversion to uniformity, and Bizarre Uprising mimics this fact quite readily. Characters spend more time off-model than on, and the artist has an odd habit of pointing out who he's ripping off when he does it. Added to the fact that practically every female character looks identical, the constant shifting of body shapes and proportions adds to the confusion created by the writer.

I mentioned earlier that the writer has a tendency to skip the action, but it may be due to the fact that the artist just can't DRAW action. There is a concept known as the line-of-action that provides a clear indication of the action in a panel, and is a concept that this amateur artist needs to comprehend. Currently, all the action seems to drift up and to the right, or down and to the left. Essentially, I get the impression that there is a giant vacuum menacing the city just slightly off panel, and it's sucking everybody towards it.

Bizarre Uprising is pretty terrible, obviously. The problem stems from its intense desire to copy the Ancient Japanese Style of Manga. But is the style at fault here? I can honestly say that it is not. After all, a style is just a style. The problem is trying to start with a style, and then adapting yourself to it. True style develops from standard practice. Style evolves naturally, and forcing yourself into one only stunts your growth. Hopefully, these manga-loving Japanophile children will learn that style does not dictate quality, but rather that quality is entirely independent of style. Problems occur when you start emulating a subsection of comics, simply because you like the "style" (and they get a lot worse when you fail to even grasp the concept of style).

Note: I realize the site is blocked by some browsers and security software because it is so bad that it qualifies as "malware." I'll provide a workaround for those of you who wish to see this terrible beast sometime this week.
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Dueling Analogs: Babbling Cintiqs

You Said It, Man

An artist should never blame his tools for his poor work. Accepting that personal shortcomings lead to a less-than-perfect product is the first step towards improving him or herself. Conversely, an artist should never expect his product to improve simply by acquiring some special tool. The Wacom Cintiq tablet is often lauded as the pinnacle of webcomic artistry. Many webcartoonists will needle their readers for donation money to "make the comic better!" Unfortunately, if your ideas are crap, there is no magical tool anywhere in the world that will make it enjoyable.

Dueling Analogs is, first and foremost, a gaming webcomic. We all know how trite and overused that concept is, but let's humor the creator, Steve Napierski, and review it like a real webcomic, shall we?

Artistically, Dueling Analogs is atrocious. Most characters are traced (or "referenced") from some piece of official art, and photoshopped around into some weird, jerky, awkward pose. Any original character designs look goofy, bizarre, or otherwise disfigured. And did you notice that all his slimmer character designs always wear turtlenecks? I guess Napierski just has no idea how to draw a proper neckline, so he just hides it with someone's fat head or anything else to disguise a character's neck.

You Need a Cintiq For This?

Of course the artist's skills don't really matter much when most of the comics aren't even being drawn. A large portion of Dueling Analogs's archive is comprised of these kinds of comics; pictures of consoles being copy/pasted into the comic and treated as actual characters. This is quite possibly the laziest thing a person could do in order to poke fun at how a console is being managed. Additionally, Napierski seems to have a strong inferiority complex, since he has a massive tendency to post strips where he apes another cartoonist's artistic style (unfortunately he still writes the same terrible jokes). There really is no humor in copying another's art, and it provides a poor substitute for actual skill, so why does Napierski insist on these ripoff strips? My only guess is that he is dissatisfied with his work and uses these strips to fantasize about being any cartoonist with more skill than he has. These two types of comics comprise about half of the Dueling Analogs archive

But the iniquity of Napierski's art is amplified by his audacity to ask for donations so he can purchase the aforementioned Cintiq tablet. Since nearly 75% of his art is traced and/or photoshopped, one wonders why he'd need a tablet at all. The air of desperation reeks around Steve Napierski, since he believes that this magical device will make him a better cartoonist. Sorry Steve, but the truth is, you'll only get better through hard work and practice (and this doesn't mean just making more terrible comics!). Take an art class or three, Steve, and maybe you can be just like your many heroes.

The key to writing a decent gaming comic is to remain unbiased. Poking fun at everyone will make it a lot easier for anyone to enjoy the comic (this goes for political comics too!). Napierski does a poor job of hiding his Sony Fanboyism, which makes him sound rather defensive or desperate in some strips. It also helps to have a unique viewpoint on the subject in order to avoid repeating a joke the reader has already heard before. This joke has been repeated in so many forms that it has officially gotten stale. Please stop rehashing it, guys. If you can't come up with an original joke (or at least one that's not quite so stale) then perhaps you should rethink your choice of hobby.

Ripping Off Penny-Arcade Just Makes You Look Like a Tool

Other times, it becomes very difficult to identify just what Napierski is trying to convey. His inability to properly write a joke thwarts even the simplest strips, reducing them from "terrible gag" to "incomprehensible mumbling". He also has problems making the dialog concise enough to fit inside the panel. Solution? Just add speech balloons OVER the panel. It's the internet, who's going to know? Well I'm going to tell all of you that this is a crappy, inelegant solution. It is better to trim your script down so that it will fit than to just cram the words in any way you can. Why? People aren't going to want to read a novel just to hear a single terrible joke.

Dueling Analogs has fought tooth and nail to be at the bottom rung of the Ladder of Gaming Webcomics. Napierski has succeeded in this endeavor by placing other Gamer Comics above his own, through the act of giving them special references in his own comic. Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but at the end of the day you're still just ripping someone off for easy hits. Besides, copying their work is not going to give you some grand insight into the deepest secrets of art. It's just going to make you look like a sleazy forger. The answer to self-improvement lies not in acquiring better tools, but learning how to use the tools you do have properly. As soon as Steve Napierski learns this basic fact, the his Analogs will finally be able to win a Duel.

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Tally Road: An Infinite Number of Potholes

The Donuts Are a Metaphor for a Terrible Webcomic

Shortly after the popularization of webcomics, some moron decided that it would be a good idea to institute a purely voluntary rating system, much like the one used for television. Ratings for webcomics are incredibly useless since the only things anyone cares about is whether or not there are exposed genitalia. Additionally, the host of the content is required to evaluate it himself, and assign the rating he thinks is most appropriate. With no universal standard being applied, a rating is worth about as much as a fettuccine noodle without any Alfredo sauce. And then there is an even greater travesty. Some cartoonists actually create content and try to shoehorn it to a rating, which is entirely and utterly backwards from the original premise. Tally Road (by a man known only as Jinxtigr) is one of these comics.

The first thing you'll notice about Tally Road is that it is another furry comic. The second thing you'll notice, is that it is uglier than sin itself. These two details, combined with the very small "Web-MA for Adult Content," should give you pause. And I'm the one who has to review this for you. The main page is utterly devoid of details and features, which is great for keeping clutter down, but is terrible for actually navigating the site. There is no concentrated archive page, or even a summary of the plot, characters or setting, so readers are required to read through as far as they can stand to figure out what the stupid thing is about. The only things you will find on the front page is a comic, basic navigation links (first, previous, etc.), a link to something called "Library" (more on this later), a blog post and one of those annoying chatterbox things. It's all black on white, which is about as bland as a Nilla Wafer, but without actually being useful in any recipes.

Going into greater depth on the art, it's a wonder Jinxtigr thinks he could ever make anything worthy of a "Web-MA" rating.

Eww Gross What is Going On Here?

Anatomically, the characters are so over-simplified, so basic, that it becomes impossible to discern an arm from a foot, much less tell which way they're pointed. There are only two characters, really, a dog and a cat. All characters have only minor variations on these two shapes, and it becomes very difficult to differentiate two of the same species. Male and female characters are (sometimes) differentiated by an extra line across the chest to indicate a breast, I guess, but that is rarely sufficient to identify that they are actually different people. During the comic's only known sex scene (don't click on this at work, moron), I can honestly say that I didn't realize the characters were both male until I was on my fourth pass through the archives.

The plot is incredibly jerky and disjointed, with consecutive pages often not showing any kind of coherent relation to each other. Characters just pop in or disappear with no explanation or even any acknowledgement. The protagonists (?) were very quick to abandon their own objectives for those of another, and failed to even go through any kind of argument or bargaining. Such weak motivation leads to apathy from the readers. No one will ever want to care about a character who is so weak-willed that he can't even follow through with any single conviction. Any attempt to inject humor into the comic falls flat, usually because of poor timing, but sometimes it's just an irrelevant joke that isn't consistent with the form of the comic. We can assert that Jinxtigr is worse at telling jokes than he is at telling a coherent story, which is quite an accomplishment, considering how terrible the entirety of Tally Road is.

Under the aforementioned 'Library' link, you can find various scrawlings that Jinxtigr has attempted to pass off as short stories and webcomic reviews. I'm not a literary critic, but I think it will suffice to say that the short stories are terrible. As for the webcomic reviews, we must ask whether Jinxtigr has any moral authority to provide an opinion regarding other webcomics. Sometimes offering no substantial opinion on a comic, he feels the need to simply talk about it, and compliment it even though he has no understanding of it. Not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, he offers only kind words to the comics he reviews, feeling some kind of obligation to promote it. Listen, reviewers, if you are always patting everyone on the back, you've already lost as a reviewer. Not everything is good, and if you claim that your subject is good when it isn't, no one will take your opinion seriously. If you like everything, no one will want to use your opinion as a gauge for the quality of comics. You don't have to be excessively negative, but fellating everyone who asks for a review is not going to earn you any respect.

So what is Tally Road good for? Other than poorly drawn guns, awful sexual puns, and anarchist furry sons, not much at all. It gives us an excellent argument against the act of creating content to fit a certain content rating group, and probably even voluntary rating systems in general. The correct way to approach a project such as a webcomic is to create the product you want, and if anyone actually cares then you can assign a content rating to it, or better yet, let someone else do it. As far as Tally Road is concerned, my only advice is to take a detour because this road is just one massive pothole. Read more→

Psychedelic Treehouse: Tips on Shoddy Craftsmanship, From the Expert Shoddy Craftsman

How does a webcartoonist improve himself? Practicing alone might seem sufficient to some, but without direction, most will just practice themselves into a hole. Rote learning can make you more efficient, but not necessarily better. There are websites which can guide an artist into developing his skills well, by giving good examples and exercises, and lead to a greater understanding of anatomy, and higher quality art. Likewise, there are aids for the writers out there who want to escape terrible characters, awful pacing issues, and atrocious plots. But aside from the art, what is out there to help you present your webcomic? I have yet to find a good site about webcomic production, but I am knee deep in bad ones.

Psychedelic Treehouse is yet another webcomic site by Ben Gordon, aka scartoonist, in which he attempts to combine information that he feels is useful to webcartoonists who wish to improve the business of their webcomic. The first thing anyone will notice, however, is the terrible page layout of PT. The first textual paragraph is a bunch of metatags, presented as a jumbled mess of phrases, some of which link to subsections of the site, while others do not. The purpose of this section puzzles and confuses me. It is an ugly site feature, and will repel users looking for a more professional site to give them advice. After this massive text chunk, Gordon gives two substanceless taglines, followed by a link to a useless "list" style website. By the time the reader reaches any true substance in the Psychedelic Treehouse, he or she is already fatigued by all the empty content they've had to wade through.

Down in the bowels of the front page, PT turns into a two-column format, with the left column being a left-justified list of various categories and subsections, with no organization or formatting cues. The right column is a centered list of site credits and contact links. The formatting wraps lines in odd places, creating lines with two words, followed by a line break. All the credits in the right column are chaotically arranged, and the reader's eye bounces all over the place, instead of following the list cleanly. The left side is only slightly better, with section titles and descriptions having various assortments of font styles and sizes, with very little consistency among either.

But what kind of substance does The Psychedelic Treehouse actually offer? Perhaps it is a diamond in the rough, an object of immense value with an ugly presentation. And perhaps Jesus himself will swoop down on the back of a giant rooster and smite all the terrible webcomics. The majority of sections found on the PT are simply lists of things. A list of webcomics, a list of webcomic collectives, a list of comic portals, blogs, publishers, award winners, podcasts, books, and commission-taking artists. There are even three whole pages of 'miscellaneous' link lists. The most useless of these 'lists' is a gallery of webcomic logos. What is the purpose of these lists? A collection of information is useless if the average reader still has to digest and analyze it himself. These lists are simply pure streams of data, with no evaluation provided by Gordon, thereby making it about as useful as a list of quantum physics equations to the average kindergartener. Ben Gordon is apparently incapable of giving the necessary commentary on the lists he provides, since he has not done so, but with the quality of his writing, I'm not sure I'd want to see it.

A few sections attempt to be more significant than just a meaningless pile of lists, which is what I'd expect from topics such as Site Design Tools and Networking, topics that Ben Gordon has obviously neglected himself. Of course, they're merely lists of links accompanied with a summary of the link, which I suppose is an improvement, but ultimately, it's not enough. Many subsections again devolve into mere lists. One section on Fonts is prefaced by an amazingly inaccurate assessment and analysis on the use of fonts, making the claim that "If you use an exotic font to letter your comic, many people in your audience will see whatever their search engine thought was the closest match." How is your browser supposed to alter the comic image to change the font used, I'm not sure, but Ben Gordon has asserted that it happens, and presented it as fact. The presence of patently idiotic statements detract from the validity of Psychedelic Treehouse as a webcomic resource. It also doesn't help that the font chosen for the page header is Comic Sans.

The remainder of Psychedelic Treehouse's content consists of extremely short 'essays' about webcomics (as well as interviews and reviews crossposted from his other sites). The problem is that these essays are written to push Gordon's concept of what cartoonists should be doing, whether he has any factual basis for saying so, or not. This checklist is full of minor and inconsequential things that only matters to Gordon, but he has presented it as a definitive checklist for new webcartoonists. The truth is, I'd trust his advice about as far as I could throw him. He puts more emphasis on how to make money from a comic, as well as shameless self-promotion than he does about any kind of substantial improvement in quality.

Ben Gordon provides very little ethos when talking about building a better webcomic site. His own sites are so jumbled, scattered, disoriented and downright terrible. Trying to pass his Psychedelic Treehouse off as an essential resource for webcomickers is laughable. It is essentially a Webcomic Junkyard: Massive piles of junk with a single potential nugget of value contained within. He makes no effort to sort the wheat from the chaff, and as a result his information becomes massive and unwieldy. Anyone looking to improve their webcomic should avoid this site like the plague, since you will waste more time digging for gold without a map than you will spend applying the useful advice to your own product. If Ben Gordon built this Psychedelic Treehouse with his own two hands, then you should think twice about turning it into a clubhouse; the shoddy craftsmanship will fall apart on you at the worst possible moment. Read more→