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→

Hijinks Ensue (In the Loosest Sense of the Term)

Terrible webcomics are fairly abundant on the Internet, but most are not worth my time to discuss here. Some are so commonly reviled that I believe ripping into them would just be redundant on my part, and others are so uninspired that it's obvious they won't last long enough to give me enough to really work with. It is truly rare to find a terrible webcomic with enough of an archive to give me something to work with, that hasn't already been picked clean by the other vitriolic webcomic reviewers around. I believe I have hit a veritable treasure trove, however, with Hijinks Ensue, a wretched hive of MacFaggotry, pop culture addiction, and one guy in the corner yelling "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!" Well, maybe it does, but this is a particular set of "information" that we should keep locked in a hidden vault underground to forget about forever.

Artistically, Joel Watson is atrocious. H.E. looks like some sort of hideous amalgamation of the late Movie Comics and the abominable Shredded Moose (which I will probably save for another day). The artist clearly has no confidence in his own abilities, since he feels the need to draw young GENERIC FOX PRESIDENT with the goatee seen in earlier panels, so the reader knows who the kid is. Facial expressions are stiff and unvaried, while poses are robotic and jerky, giving the characters a sense of realism not seen since robots enslaved humanity. Because of the terrible art, this joke falls flat, since a casual reader wouldn't know the difference between this Eli character and the original, without close examination. The guy needs to study some anatomy, because no one's neck should stick out like this, nor should one's eyes be haphazardly bulging from one's head. Unfortunately, the art is not the worst part of this comic.

Putting the art aside, there is still plenty of terrible in this comic. The excessive addiction to television and movies is offputting, especially since there is rarely a joke about either that can be made funny by a webcomic. First of all, most of the shows enjoyed by nerds generally make fun of themselves by being so terrible. But when a nerd tries to defend these shows by appealing to some universal code of dorkery, it's not funny or amusing, just depressing. Second, if you can't stop watching a show because it has turned bad (or always been bad) then you deserve whatever misery you receive. Lastly, movie and television jokes often require that the reader has watched the movie or show in question, and if he hasn't, it is rarely funny. Also, you can't include spoilers in the joke in case people are intending to watch it, but haven't yet, so that cuts down on quite possibly a million potential jokes. Ultimately, a comic about movies or television shows is usually not worth it, considering that it often ends up being a very weak joke that few will get (or want). Because they are passive media, you can't make jokes about simple mechanics like videogames can do, and aren't broad enough to encompass a large portion of readers like current events tend to do.

But worse than the pop culture minutia, I feel, is the torrent of incorrigible MacFaggotry that permeates this webcomic like grease on a pizza. The worst thing about Apple products is the smugness that surrounds its consumer base so thickly that you could cut it with a dull knife. Apple fans have a tendency to treat Steve Jobs as the second coming of Jesus Christ, and every product he craps out as manna from on high. They admittedly acknowledge that they will buy anything Apple releases despite whether they really truly want them, especially when they know that a better model will be released a year or so later. Instead of waiting until the value fits the price, Jobsians will buy up everything and get angry about it later. And when a product with even remote similarity to an established Apple product is released, such as Microsoft's Zune, MacFags get extremely butthurt about people getting excited about an alternative choice to their beloved Apple, and call it such things as "inadequate," "second-rate" and "crappy."

And then there's a bizarre amount of hypocrisy. Berating Microsoft for their latest ad campaign where they show the diversity of PC users as being "off-target," while the Mac ads have become increasingly negative makes me wonder if people like Joel Watson can even compare something as transparent as an ad campaign, or if they simply follow the Apple party line. Harassing Wal*Mart for selling DRM protected music when the iTunes store is essentially nothing but DRM protected media is stupefying. Shifting blame to the manufacturer instead of the distributor with baseless accusations is the kind of selfish fanboyism I've come to expect from the MacFags out there. I could go for days giving examples of Apple fanboys attacking other companies for "reprehensible acts" while defending Apple for those exact same acts. Vista is too restrictive with respect to the consumer experience? Better defend Apple's restrictions regarding the consumer experience!

And what group of Applefans would they be if they didn't have a completely unnecessary podcast? I listened to one or two and all I can say is "ugh." It's basically an amalgamation of all the jokes they couldn't frame as a comic strip, as well as boring, detached-from-reality commentary, much like the ones that can be found under the comic strips. Who wants to listen to this terrible comic as a podcast after reading this terrible comic as a webcomic? Not me, that's for sure. And I'm surprised that a webcomic run entirely by MacFags has such poor site design. Framed with massive ads, the actual strip is always pushed over to the right, where, if you don't have your browser window full-screened, requires that the reader scroll over to read it. How irritating! There is an additional sidebar on the RIGHT side, under the comic, where Joel Watson begs for donations followed by another ad. Joel even considers this atrocious comic his full-time job, and wants to increase his income from it to self-sufficient levels. Hey, if you want to make a little more money, just add a few more ads! Separate each blog post with an ad, sell ads in your podcast, just make more of them!

If you want to turn comicking into a sufficient source of income, you should be prepared to churn out more than 3 comics a week. You're going to have to bust your ass to make a living in this world, half-assing a comic without decent art or subject material and hanging out with your friends in front of a microphone is not going to cut it. Streamline your frontpage so that it isn't absolutely burdened with thousands of links and ads. A minimalist site design would serve you well, especially considering your intended audience. As you are now, Hijinks Ensue, you are the most basic incarnation of "terrible." Oh, and what the hell is this? Simplifying a candidate like this is insulting not only to the candidate, but also your readers. Do you not think they're smart enough to make this kind of decision based on actual facts, instead of simply following whatever you say? Well maybe not, since they think your comic is worth reading. Forget I said anything.

Hijinks Ensue is a webcomic that I find to be very valuable, not because it has any redeeming qualities, but because it has none. A truly terrible webcomic like this usually does not have a substantial body of work for me to review, and when one does, it is often already well-known enough that I would essentially be beating a dead horse. This comic is basically the worst I have seen all year, and I appreciate it for giving me something to review. However, now that I have reviewed it, I kindly ask that these hijinks cease ensuing, because they are not at all amusing, just noisy and annoying.

Tuesday Addendum: Oh god I had spent so long working on this terrible webcomic that a few things I intended to mention failed to make it in, because by the time I finished the penultimate paragraph, I was already trying not to vomit all over my laptop.

The blog posts that accompany every comic page are so self-fellating, so auto-congratulatory, I wonder if Watson's head would explode if someone informed him that he is NOT the center of the Internet. They also end up inadvertently explaining the joke in case someone didn't get it (and wanted it in the first place). Lets face it, Joel, you're not that clever, so quit patting yourself on the back. Just stick to related topic links and pull your head out of the clouds. Oh wait I forgot that Mactards can't comprehend the concept of separating their ego from their writing. My bad.

One page in particular raised my ire, and it's something I have railed against before. Some webcartoonists don't grasp the concept of Services. You PAY people to do things so YOU don't have to. Even if it is something as menial as printing out your awful comic to glossy paper. If you don't like paying the service charge, then just roll up your sleeves, buy the supplies you need to do it yourself, and GET TO WORK. No one is forcing you to go down to Kinko's to print out a comic to sell to schmucks for an extra $10 in your pocket. It's not like you're even selling the original artwork. I guess all the idiots really do have too much money.

I apologize for missing these two atrocious aspects of this comic the first time through. I guess I'm going to have to start writing an outline down on paper beforehand to make sure that all my vitriol is fully expended the first time through. Read more→

Something Positive: If You Don't Have Something Nice to Say, Post It on Anti-Snark

The majority of Internet users are cynical, untrusting, hate-filled piles of misery and mistrust. In theory, a comic full of characters who mirror this attitude (as well as paper-thin strawmen for them to attack with their rapier wit and superior intelligence) should be immensely successful amongst the misanthropes of the E-Zone. Something Positive has managed to build a comic on this premise, and promptly run it into the ground.

Devon, the author-insert, is a bastion of cynicism and sarcasm. Leading others down a sardonic path of self-loathing, and even converting a few mindless strawmen characters along the way, Randy Milholland fancies his Devon counterpart as a Sarcastic Jesus character, saving all the sarcastoids and defeating the forces of Happiness Hell.

Milholland has also managed to cut production costs by eliminating the Plotline Development Department. Instead, he simply re-runs the same 4 or 5 plotlines ad nauseum, merely recasting certain roles and fine-tuning dialog. Plot 1: Devon gets a new girlfriend. Plot 2: Devon finds out girlfriend is crazier than he thought. Plot 3: Devon gets involved in a play. Plot 4: Devon and Friends play a Role-playing game using 'zany' characters. Ultimately, each of these plots resolves the same way, so you really only need to read through the archive about a year before you've gotten all the plots read.

Milholland has caught on to this problem, but instead of writing new plots, he has simply beefed up his one-shot filler comics with a sizeable cast of 50 or so nitwits who were converted to the side of tolerability by Devon and his Sword of Sarcasm. This way, a reader will feel obligated to learn everything about each minor character by reading through the archive until he or she shows up as a blathering strawman, ready to be given character depth by Devon's divine influence.

Artistically, Something Positive is a stagnant marsh of fetid water. Milholland's characters are juvenile arrangements of facial features on the side of a lima bean, with the consistency of a bowl of banana pudding. The sarcastic, half-lidded gazes from smirking faces almost smarm me into a feeling of annoyance before they melt off their gelatinous skulls. From panel to panel the features are stretched and smushed before being redrawn. Minor characters are often hidden behind large glasses that obscure the otherwise expressionless eyes (expressionless because the artist has no idea how to convey happiness that isn't accompanied by smugness).

Perspective is a difficult concept for fourth graders, and Milholland is no exception. Most pages are framed with no spatial depth, and those that are try to keep it simple. However, occaisionally a few will slip through that make Guernica look like a technical diagram. Milholland is also terrible at drawing clothes, since everything he draws looks like it was tailored to fit Quasimodo (or Quetzalcotl, I'm not sure which). One thing is for certain, I won't be asking him to design my house or my wardrobe.

Sarcasm is fun. It lets you pretend you're smarter than someone simply by being indirect. Of course, there is a point where it gets ridiculous and excessive, and everyone gets sick of it. Something Positive has passed this point several times, each time stopping to ask for directions on how to get to "popular" (sarcastically of course). There is nothing we can do at this point to stop the sardonic juggernaut except hope that sarcasm is just a fad on the Internet, and will soon fall out of favor with the mindless sops who populate this dank corner of Cyberspace. The only positive thing about Something Positive that I can say is that it's not a comic that people feel the need to talk about a lot, since it's so offensive to my senses that the mere mention of it would induce vomiting. Read more→