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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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→

Menage a Three: Betty & Veronica Give Archie Blue Balls

Sure, porn comics can increase your readership with the amount of horny teenagers, but what happens when you make a porn comic without any actual porn? Holding back might create an air of legitimacy amongst less-than-savvy reviewers, who might convince themselves that since there is no nudity, it's not actually a porn comic. This would relieve a sense of shame the creator might have about making such a comic since it's not really porn. "Pornographers are sleazy, creepy people, and that's not me!" they convince themselves. Well I regret to inform you that you are a pornographer, and you are sleazy and creepy. Blueballing your readers just makes you sleazier, because despite being ashamed of what you've made, you continue to make it, because you just love the attention.

Menage a Three is the tale of a poor virgin nerd whose old roommates turn out to be gay (and boning each other) so they are immediately replaced by two totally hot girls! It takes place in the deepest, darkest, dankest bowels of French Canada, which I guess is the home of the artist, Gisèle Lagacé, and I guess explains the title, a french term for a threesome, used only by pretentious yuppies who want to make sex sound classy. At any rate, the lonely nerd suffers a hilarious quantity of sexual frustration due to the fact that he'd rather read comic books and watch anime (and porn, and anime porn) instead of socializing with actual people and getting to know girls. Uh oh, I think I might have alienated some (all) of my readers.

Artistically, Menage a Three has been compared to Archie, with a hint of anime. It is full of traditional anime shorthand and tropes, like the bloody dork nose, sweatdrops, these bizarre rivers draining from eyes, little child versions of the characters for no reason, scribbles above the head of a frustrated character, the list goes on. Every strip is an homage to the honored Japanese tradition of abstracting every emotion to a mere symbol on the character's face. Obviously Giz knows her audience is primarily anime-loving virgins, some of which can only get off to anime porn, so she has added these elements to make them feel more comfortable.

The Archie influence is more than just in the art, however. Many of the goofy puns and trite sight gags are the kind of junk you would expect to see in Archie comics, except for the porno filter applied later in photoshop. The plots are generally mundane and Archie-esque, such as "Day at the Beach" or "Moving Day" where the biggest conflict is whether to eat chicken or hamburgers. The dialog is cheesier than ballpark nachos, and the characters act about as believably as Keanu Reeves. It's not really hard to put a sexually repressed nerd in a frustrating situation with two girls, so why not try a little harder to do it a little better? I guess the Gizzer isn't as committed to this concept as she wants us to think she is.

The characters themselves are very annoying. I don't mean "oh his flaws are so annoying, why do they put up with him." I mean "who could put up with this guy for more than a minute, his behavior is so irritating!" The large french woman, Didi speaks in Frenglish, often swapping between English and French at bizarre times. Speaking between two languages is a mannerism I have never seen done well, as the authors doing it have a tendency to just swap out words and phrases at random, without really thinking about which ones they're doing or why. A little research into this behavior would go a long way, but it's not really worth it, since it really adds nothing to her character other than "she's french." The scrawny "punk rock" (poser) chick Zii has massive boundary issues, and I find it hard to believe that she has gotten no reactions worse than rolled eyes, a shrug and an "oh Zii!" Her behavior is generally a subconscious desire for attention, and if you know someone like this, you know that attention-seeking behavior is always incredibly annoying. The comic book hypernerd, Gary, is a pathetic whiner who always looks like he's about to break out in tears. His inability to enjoy himself makes him a drag on everyone else and his constant protests make everyone want to leave him at home. These terrible characters are about as compelling as a documentary on French Canada, and they certainly make me wish I could just close the browser so I wouldn't have to read this terrible webcomic. Unfortunately, I have to, for your sake.

Menage a Three is a porn comic, without the pesky burden of actually having any porn. The premise of one sexually repressed guy living with two girls was more entertaining back in the 70s when it was Three's Company. I'm not being facetious, Three's Company is about twenty times better than Menage a Three could ever be, simply because it isn't ashamed of itself. Unlike most webcartoonists, Gisele Lagace has at least some artistic talent, but the fact that she is wasting it on this amalgamation of atrocities convinces me that she has no desire to become a great artist, and prefers simple stories for simple people. The Jizzer has given us a terrible webcomic, and expects to cash in quick with the promise of pornographic content, even though she has no idea of giving anyone anything more than a stray nipple. If you want a compelling character-based story wrought with sexual frustration, there are plenty of better ones out there that aren't just sleazy porn. And if you want porn, there's better places for that too. Menage a Three is simply the equivalent of trying to watch the scrambled channels on your TV. Read more→

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→