Mag-Isa: Good, Evil, I'm the Guy With the Self-Loathing

Here We See Emmanuel "Crybaby" Cruz About to Achieve Super Wuss Form Level 4

Conflict is an essential part of any story. Well-written conflict is an essential part of a good story. So when something is written that is devoid of conflict, it becomes difficult to determine if you have a story, or a Series of Events That Happened. The former is generally intriguing, attracts an audience on its own merits, and maintains some momentum that the writer can use to coast through some dull but necessary exposition. The latter would be akin to telling everyone that you had a mediocre cup of coffee, and expecting them to care. Today we'll look at what happens to a webcomic when it is deprived of any conflict whatsoever, and how that affects a reader's ability to care. Our subject is a comic known as Mag-Isa and has persisted for two years and 10 "chapters" without any conflict. It has only done so through sheer force of will, and perseverance in the face of boringness.

Mag-Isa stars a young, troubled self-insert by the name of Emmanuel Cruz. He is an Filipino immigrant to Canada, who often laments his lack of friends and family. A normal person might consider that there might be some way to improve himself so that he would better fit in and make friends. But no, apparently it's just a cultural difference and there is nothing that can be done to bridge that gap. His family is not much better, allegedly. Both parents are portrayed as incredibly abusive, when they inconsistently beat Eman, complaining about his violent tendencies after he writes a troubling journal entry about raping drugged-out prostitutes with AK-47s. Eman sees no issue with his writing of course, and doesn't comprehend why anyone else would. After all, it's just a creative writing class, so it's not like the words are anything more than an expression of his inner desires.

Considering that Emmanuel is a blatant self-insert, the reader can only assume that these incidents reflect actual events in the author's life. Exaggerated, most likely, but since hyperbole is just a matter of scale, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume that the author has the same kind of twisted worldview where it's normal to write about killing your colleagues and self, and that no one should express any concern over that kind of content.

This is not the only troubling behavior exhibited by Eman. There is also an event where he spends all his time helping his female friend work on a book report. After it's finished, Eman decides to ask her out, but she rejects him. Could it be the fact that she values his friendship more than his value as a potential mate? Or perhaps it's just the really creepy way he asked her out? No, she's just an ungrateful, selfish cocktease who wishes to torment Eman for no other reason than he's fun to torment. Then she shoots him.

When I Told Her to Swallow a Bullet, This Wasn't What I Meant

Through all of this, there has not been any significant building conflict. Chris has propped his "story" up against a generic Good vs. Evil plot, but has not done much to actually develop or explore this conflict, or even show how Eman fits into it. Meanwhile, Eman has had several opportunities to engage in conflicts of his own, between his peers or his self, but instead of confronting any of them he instead chooses to ignore it and go somewhere else. When his favorite priest is accused of pedophilia, Eman just cries for a bit and then moves on. When his friend and roommate gets shot in front of him, Eman just yells for a bit, launches an effortless revenge attempt, and gets shot up a lot, then moves on.

Ultimately, Eman joins an anti-government terrorist cell because some girl has sex with him. He then spends the next period of time training to fight against some generic, faceless enemy. His colleagues are other degenerates who have lashed out violently against their peers, and feel that there is nothing wrong with their behavior. The unusual bit about this, is that Eman had spent a while doing "Martial Arts" training with his priest (before he had been framed for pedophilia) and almost immediately becomes out of shape when he joins the anti-something terrorism squad.

In eleven chapters, the only thing remotely approaching conflict would be two poorly choreographed fight scenes, one between a priest and the object of his desire, and the other between some heretofore uncharacterized agent of "Good" fighting some bizarre plantchild. Neither of these fights has any sort of building action, no motivation beyond "I don't want to die right now" and serves no literary purpose beyond breaking up the boring exposition. This does not qualify as true conflict, though, since it doesn't really add to the story in any way whatsoever. Instead, this is a way to distract the reader from the fact that there is nothing driving the plot by creating the illusion of strife. Unfortunately for Chris, it's hard to forget that the protagonist is a worthless, self-hating twerp who has no potential for an enticing story.

When This Guy Flips Out, His Skeleton Gets All Wonky

So if there is no conflict driving this story, just what exactly is? Something must be compelling the author to tell this story; there must be something driving him to put us through this drivel. My guess is that it's some sort of cathartic release, retelling these "tragic" events of his life so that the pain will stop. But I'll tell you something, Chris, the pain never stops. as long as this webcomic exists, someone will have to live through the pain it causes. And if you have a conscience, the guilt will eat away at you until you destroy yourself. I hope.

From what we've seen in Mag-Isa, I think it's safe to say that Chris harbors some kind of persecution complex, feels that the reason his life is so terrible is that someone out there is trying to make it so. This is the theme presented in Mag-Isa, large corporations and media outlets being corrupted by the generic forces of "Evil" to trick people into believing dumb ideas and performing horrible actions. The responsibility is removed from the people and the blame is placed squarely on the Elite.

It has always been firmly established that a good story requires conflict. Conflict drives the plot, giving your characters a reason to grow. It is the lifeblood of any plot. But until Mag-Isa, no one really knew what would happen if the story lacked any conflict whatsoever. Now we know that it becomes a whiny piece of livejournalistic moping and depression. Thanks for the experiment Chris Lim, you can end it now. Please? Read more→

1977: Like a TV Show, Except You Read It

Here We See the Cast of That 70's Comic. From Left to Right: Jackie, Eric, FES, Kelso and Donna. They're All High on Illegal Drugs

What's worse than ripping off a popular television series? Ripping off a popular television series, and then putting it in a webcomic format. Fortunately, I can safely say that today's topic does not violate one's sense of decency in all the basic, lackluster ways, but manages to do so in new, exciting ways. Actually I'm sure it hits on all the basics, I've just become insensitive to those kinds of transgressions, what with subjecting myself to them regularly. But I digress. Today's case study is a comic which goes by the less than descriptive name 1977, and as you may have surmised, takes place in the year 1977.

1977 follows the story of 4 twenty-somethings who smoke illegal marijuana and attempt to play in a band. Of course, I have to take their word that they're in a band, seeing as how they're never portrayed as actually playing in a band. The closest they get is performing activities that bands do, such as driving out to shows, try to find someone else to do the hard work for them, and sell illicit drugs. However no pages have actually shown the characters during or immediately after one of their alleged "shows." Effectively, when a story arc begins involving the musical aspect of the strip, suddenly the plot ends and we cut to a character shooting up LSD.

This would be forgivable if the generic plots were halfway decent. But if that were the case, then I wouldn't be writing this review. 1977 managed to last a whole three months before introducing a gimmick where the male lead suddenly genderswaps. I was hoping that when the plot resolved, this gimmick would be shelved eternally, but you and I are not so lucky. The spontaneous sex changes have been used repeatedly in lieu of jokes, when the cartoonist needs a way to introduce a plot point. The first clue should have been how the ridiculous story was ended with a tenuous reference to The Incredible Hulk. In fact, it seems that the majority of 1977's plot is fueled by nothing more than pop culture references. Don't get me wrong, the occasional reference is fine for the sake of making a gag, but for actually driving a story, it's like building a skyscraper on quicksand.

Pothead Musician Rule #6: Distract Your Audience From Your Terrible Playing by Wearing a Revealing Outfit

The perpetual regendering raises another issue with the comic, namely the fact that every character has the same hairstyle, and therefore, every character looks the same. Effectively, not only do all the girls in this comic look the same, but now you have the added confusion of a male character who also looks like all the females. Clearly the cartoonist hasn't considered the psychological implications of what would happen if the two male roommates, after a night of taking illegal drugs, woke up to find they had engaged in sex rituals with each other. I don't think anyone could look at their roommate the same way after that kind of traumatizing experience.

Artistic anomalies are not limited to the fact that everyone has the same hair; the eyes also lead to a disturbing conclusion. While female characters are given decently expressive eyes, male characters are given soulless, pupil-free eyes. This kind of disconnect between his depictions of the two genders indicates some degree of sexism inherent in the mind of the cartoonist. This is further evidenced by the fact that his sexswapping character exhibits the same differences between his male and female counterparts, which, aside from making it difficult to mentally connect both versions, seem to further indicate that the cartoonist sees a fundamental difference between the two genders.

Drug Use Has Been Shown to Decrease Comic Making Skills and Increase Levels of Smugness

Putting the cartoonist's latent sexism aside, we must now take issue with the uninspired setting of this comic. The 1970s were probably a great time if you were a shiftless layabout who did nothing but ingest illicit drugs and pretend that you could play guitar. But for anyone with half a brain, the 70s were just a time when life was annoying, inflation was out of control, and people had no taste. During the 70s, music was at its most banal, lacking style and substance, ignoring tradition and innovation, and our cartoonist feels it necessary to title each comic as a reference to some 70s song. It was cute at first, but as time wears on the relation between the chosen lyrics and the content of the comic becomes tenuous at best.

This extends to all the other pop culture references found in 1977. All sources of entertainment were incredibly vacuous, and it takes an extremely vapid, drug-addled mind to remember any of them fondly. To be honest, that is true of everything today and will be true for all of eternity, but that's another matter entirely. The point we're making today is that the 70s were an uninspired era, and any fond remembrance of them is clearly the work of illicit substances.

Nostalgia has never been a great premise for a comic strip. It's usually just a mask for poor writing, and often uses references in place of actual plot progression. This transgression is further amplified by choosing an absolutely absurd era to be nostalgic about, a time when the people driving culture were so focused on themselves, chasing that next high, rather than improving society in any meaningful way. So remember, when you're coming up with the idea for your next webcomic, avoid basing it on your own nostalgia, no matter how appealing television might make it seem. And remember to pass on the grass!
Read more→

Rooster Teeth (aka College Dorm: The Webcomic)

"I Call It 'Bad Webcomic'"

You might have noticed, for the last few months, I have had an email link asking for reader submissions of comics to review. I did not have to wait long until I received a suggestion: Rooster Teeth comics, from the same people who brought you Red vs Blue. A cursory glance told me that the comic was terrible, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was primarily wrong about it. So I decided to go through the archive and make a list of everything that was missing, in order to discern what the cartoonist did wrong.

• 40% of the American Flag - While inserting someone else's artwork into a comic is generally reprehensible, as it looks incredibly awkward and wrong, there is an exception when it comes to national flags. When it is flat against a wall, a flag made in Photoshop is going to be indistinguishable from a flag grabbed off Wikipedia, as long as it's accurate. A US flag with only 25 stars and 11 stripes is close enough to fool the reader at first, but becomes more and more suspicious the longer its looked at, and is rather disconcerting in a 'humor' comic.



• A Clear Concept of How People Converse - In most RT conversations, the characters are performing an unnatural action known as 'palming.' Artists often feel a need to do something with the characters' hands, but usually have no idea what they should be doing. Consequently, characters are drawn palming, because doing nothing is an undesirable option. Additionally, the characters must ALWAYS be facing the camera, because otherwise we wouldn't know who they were. Even if it looks like their heads are on backwards, they must always look toward the reader!



• A Tenuous Grasp on Human Anatomy - I'll start with this: necks do not end in the center of the head. They go in the back of the head. They're also not a foot long. Some of these characters have massive noggins perched atop narrow stalks for necks. The clavicle does not attach to your back, and torsos don't look like that when they twist. The humerus is not attached to the ribcage, and pectoral muscles don't just disappear. I can see why these guys are grossed out.




"No, I'm Not Interested in Buying Eyelids in Bulk at a Discount"

• Upper Eyelids - Most emotion in RT comics are expressed by squinting the character's lower eye lids. In fact, the majority of panels feature a closed lower lid. It would be nice if this was some sort of satire of the common half-lidded expression found in most webcomics, but I really doubt that the artist is clever enough to come up with that. Instead, I think he's just trying to avoid falling into that quagmire, and managed to fall into it from the other direction.



• Jokes - I'm not sure I understand the point of this one. Blu-ray players exist outside of PS3s so why is this guy spazzing out? No one knows. Why is a man yelling at trees? Who cares? There are a lot of comics that don't have jokes included. I know we're in a recession, but this is ridiculous.



• Consistent Comic Resolution - Some of these comics are really really small, and some are really really big. It's really kind of annoying having to strain my eyes to read one, then having to scroll all over the place to read the next one. Please keep them a consistent size, so the pages aren't annoying to read.



• Positive Space - Yes, I know you don't want to crowd the panel with characters and dialog, but this amount of negative space is just ridiculous. The guy looks silly at that size, and just doesn't engage the reader like he would if he were filling up a bit more of the panel, especially in those two panels where nothing is happening. The same could be said of these two, as they would look better if they were filling up the panel, as they'd look closer together and give the impression that they are actually interacting. This is probably caused by the artist drawing the characters before even thinking about the word balloons, so he draws a lot of space for the balloons to go, just in case. In the future, I would reccommend sketching the whole thing out, text and all, so it doesn't feel like the comic has a bunch of visual gaps in it that divert the reader and eat his soul.




Ironically, It Doesn't Filter Out Red Vs Blue

• Fresh Ideas - If you've read 10 of these comics, you've pretty much exhausted the depth of Rooster Teeth's pool of ideas. For the most part, these comics are about 30-year-old men who act like they're still living in the college dorm. Cracking gay jokes and video game sex jokes like they're still as funny as they were then, but unfortunately they aren't. When a 20 year old cracks an immature joke, it's funny because you expect him to be immature. When an old man makes the same joke, however, it's just creepy, because the only people that age who make immature jokes are most likely sex offenders. The writers are aware of how stale the material is, because they've acknowledged that the main comic is not funny enough, and decide to include some zany background character doing something wacky, in order to ensure laughs.



• Shins - Apparently someone blew this guys shins off in the war with a machine gun, and they had to glue his feet to his knees. But I think that idea's already been done.

This list has made one thing about Rooster Teeth comics apparent: It's missing something. What that something is can only be determined by looking at this list and analyzing each missing piece. And I have finally discovered what is wrong with these comics. They lack one crucial element, the one thing that is necessary for any webcomic. Hopefully the cartoonists at Rooster Teeth can work on attaining this thing that they are lacking, because until they do their comics will be the most brainless abominations to ever exist, appealing only to idiotic squids. What is this solitary thing that they lack? That thing is talent. Read more→

Bengo's Choice: Investigative Journalism or Libel?

My faithful reader might be wondering why I stopped updating for the past month. Simple answer: I decided to take a vacation from this blog for a month, starting about 2 weeks before I made the decision. I had begun to run low on vitriol and needed to spend some time drilling some from the nearby gulf. The comics I have in my queue were either too young to work with, had spontaneously stopped updating, or were otherwise outside my capacity to review. So I decided to relax for a while and see if a month would give these guys enough time to mature into viable targets. Unfortunately, something far more inane occurred. Ben Gordon finally decided to leap from his bell tower of insanity to the the warm blue waters of the Crazy Sea. If I might be serious for one week, I'd like to point out how utterly ridiculous Gordon has become.

Gordon's magnificent swan dive into madness began almost six month ago, when he decided to take issue with a business model presented in How to Make Webcomics by those Halfpixel guys, namely an assertion that a firmly established webcomic might expect 5-10% of its readers to purchase any items from its online store. Gordon seems to think that this means that buyers will only purchase a single item whose profit is $5, failing to account for repeat customers. Gordon also seems to take a flawed mathematical approach, using monthly traffic numbers to approximate annual income. The use of "Traffic" as a term is also incredibly vague. Is he talking hits, unique visitors, or what? I wouldn't consider every unique visitor to qualify as a "reader" for the purposes of Halfpixel's sell-through rate. Gordon also seems to claim that several of his "case studies" give conflicting data but fails to deliver enough data regarding his case studies. While he seems to want them to remain anonymous, he is trying to imply that the expected income from the Halfpixel model doesn't match up with their actual incomes, but this figure is never given. Information like the age of the comic he's studying, selection in the comic's online store, or anything which would lead anyone to follow his conclusion from the data he's given. In summary, Gordon's rebuttal to the model presented in How to Make Webcomics lacks sufficient evidence to convince anyone but the most gullible.

This led to an intense mistrust of anything Halfpixel did, such as purchasing the webcomics.com domain and tries to find anything remotely suspicious about Halfpixel that he can muster up. Unfortunately, there's not a lot out there so he has to make a lot of it up.

At the same time, Gordon began developing a grievance against Dumbrella, namely for their sponsorship of webcomics blog Fleen. Now I don't know about you, but if McDonald's is producing a blog, I'd expect it to focus on Big Macs and McRibs, not the overall state of the fast food industry as a whole. They have access to information and sources that normal people don't have. But Gordon would have you believe that it would be best for all blogs to cover the same industry with the exact same scope, i.e. all webcomics blogs should cover the entire breadth of the webcomics realm evenly and fairly. Of course, since Gordon fancies himself a real life journalist, this is nothing more than a Journalistic wet dream he has. Wanting amateur webcomics bloggers to be held to some journalistic ideal seen only in films and comic strips. Whether Gordon is justified or not in disliking Fleen, this began an unhealthy obsession with Dumbrella, to supplant his already obsessive dislike of Halfpixel.

Gordon's desires soon turned to uncovering some kind of major corruption scandal in the world of webcomics. He began by developing some kind of "Corruption Metric" for webcomics, but of course he only states what he is measuring, not HOW he is measuring it. But until he found a big conspiracy, there was nothing to test his self-created metric against. Gordon was so intent on finding a big conspiracy that he managed to convince himself that one existed.

Until this past month, his obsessions were fairly harmless. But beginning in February, Gordon moved from harmless stalking to destructive libel. Inspired, perhaps, by the emerging popularity of Twitter among webcartoonists, Gordon began his quixotic crusade by attacking the advice given by Scott Kurtz in How to Make Webcomics, "Fake it 'til you make it," as inciting a plethora of webcomickers to fake their popularity until they actually become popular. In actuality, this is common advice for nervous people, telling them to act like they're highly skilled until they gain their confidence and self-worth. Gordon seems to have forgotten that he has manufactured this intention by Kurtz, and has taken further steps to sabotage his career. This blog post by Bengo was the first shot in a war against scientific integrity.

The next day, he posted a lengthy assault against a small collection of his enemies, accusing them of being a Twitter "faking gang," or a gang of people who created fake Twitter followers for each other. His premise is that a large quantity or Twitter followers is a significant status symbol among webcartoonists, and by inflating this number by dishonest means, one can attract gullible idiots who just want to read whatever's popular. He also tries to connect Twitter cheating to other statistical cheating, but applies circular logic later to convict his opponents to both. They are guilty of Twitter cheating because it's known that they cheat on their other stats, and they are guilty of cheating on their other stats because they are known Twitter cheaters.

His only stated method for identifying fake Twitter accounts is that they have a limited number of people they follow, with few posts of their own. Gordon has made claims that there are more conclusive techniques to identify fakes, but has yet to divulge them: "Various techniques allow us to identify fakes; too many to list today." At this point Gordon attempts to prove the fakers by showing their visitor numbers. These attacks are levelled largely at Scott Kurtz, but Meredith Gran of Octopus Pie also suffers a grand assault. Gordon's main argument is that OP went through large jumps in readership twice over the last year, therefore it must be doing something shady to generate those readership increases. The truth of the matter is simply that Octopus Pie was barely a year old, and at an age where large jumps in popularity are both drastic and common. Consequently, the graphs provided for PvP show nothing more than a single month of poor performance in November, followed by a large increase in December of 2008. The most likely reason is a glitch in the data provided (by a third party, no less), as well as a month where people have a lot of free time. However, presented by Gordon, this is a suspicious increase in traffic by the mastermind of a vast conspiracy.

After this less than damning evidence against Gran and Kurtz is presented, Gordon begins the most troubling part of his "report." He begins listing names of people he believes are fake Twitter accounts, with nothing more than the names of the people he thinks created them. Failure to grasp the behavior of Twitter in the hands of webcomics fans will be Gordon's undoing; these people are merely fans who wanted to follow their favorite creators. They signed up for Twitter just to follow these people, because otherwise they'd have no reason to have a Twitter account. People really are capable of realizing that their lives aren't interesting enough for other people to read about, and therefore feel no need to use this service for themselves. This behavior, continued in later blog posts by Gordon, is reminiscent of Senator Joe McCarthy naming suspected Communists, with no evidence whatsoever.

In the comments of this post, Gordon dismisses alternative sources of data as unreliable (for no discernable reason, no less) and asserts that his accusations of Twitter faking are, indeed, factual. Gordon fails to realize that in order for something to be factual, evidence is first required to verify. His speculation on Twitter cheating is not fact simply because he says it is, and using these false facts as evidence against these cartoonists for faking their other statistics is a terrible logical fallacy.

Several of Gordon's blog posts in February take snipes at his accused Twitter Fakers, turned an innocent party into some kind of exclusive nightclub circle jerk, and otherwise masturbated his own journalistic ego into a Grand Mal seizure of self-congratulation, before attempting to seriously sabatoge Scott Kurtz's career. Kurtz had been asked to host the Harvey awards this year at Baltimore Comic-con, because of a positive response to his presentation in previous years. Due to a manufactured grudge against Kurtz, after imagining a conspiricy, Gordon decided that Kurtz wasn't "good enough" to host these awards, and has started a letter writing campaign to have Kurtz uninvited. This is, of course, a ridiculous course of action to take when your only motivation is something you yourself have manufactured.

Gordon's most recent post on the subject gives more detail to his proposed motivation behind Twitter faking. In essence, the Webcomics Industry is largely run on the character of its creators. By faking popularity, Gordon asserts that popularity can be generated. Communities spring up around popular comics, and these communities will generate traffic in return. But it's a double-edged sword. Levelling audacious claims against webcartoonists with absolutely no evidence to support them, even things as seemingly innocuous as forging Twitter followers, can damage someone's reputation to the point where they begin to lose readers because of it. And that, my friends, is known as libel. Gordon, if he has no actual evidence to support his claims of Twitter forging other than wild speculation and circumstantial evidence, has committed libel, and should begin apologizing immediately.

Ultimately, Gordon is just a fringe blogger who desperately wants to be an investigative journalist with a lot of importance in the field of webcomics. Unfortunately, he has yet to realize that the way to get there is not by publishing audacious claims, inciting career sabotage, and committing grand acts of libel, but by dedicating himself to writing an honest, if boring, blog. Cover the dull stories, and use them to improve your writing skills, Bengo, and when something big actually does come along, then you can use those skills to really make it big. This route is self-destructive and dangerous, and part of me hopes you make the right choice.

PS: Joe McCarthy is a terrible role model Read more→

Peter is the Wolf: The Most CONTROVERSIAL Review Yet!

In the Light of a Full Moon, Sarah Hazen Transforms into an Atrocious Webcomic.

There is nothing more reprehensible than a smutty porn comic that tries to pass itself off as something for all ages. Comics often attempt to pull this off by taking their pornographic material, and covering up small naughty bits or just removing completely graphic scenes. Unfortunately this usually results in a second-rate product for general audiences, since all of the creator's effort is being poured into the purely erotic bits. I'm not convinced that a comic can exist where two equal versions exist, where one is for scum-sucking sleazebags and the other is for the more decent population. The odds are very slim. Peter is the Wolf, (from White Lightning Productions) is the prime example of just how unlikely a concept this is. And since furries are being thrown into the mix, the odds are ever-narrowing. NOTE: I will only be discussing and linking the general version of this comic, because the porn pages are so mind-shreddingly vile that I would be charged with war crimes if I inflicted them upon you. You can switch to the adult version (at your own peril) by replacing 'general' in the URL with 'adult'.

Peter is the Wolf (written by Kris Overstreet and drawn by Benjamin "BAR-1" Rodriguez) is, at its core, a tale about werewolfs. Werewolfs, it turns out, are simply the furry equivalent of vampires, which we all know is simply a ploy to seem more mysterious. Furries have an amazingly difficult time separating their professional life from their sex life, so it goes without saying that anything I link, despite being from the general audiences version, is probably not safe to view at work, lest you get fired from your job as an actuary/test pilot/terrible webcomic reviewer. Peter is the Wolf chronicles the adventures of a werewolf, not surprisingly named Peter, who unsuspectingly turns his girlfriend into a werewolf via unprotected sex. Invariably, she turns into a 12-foot-tall werewolfess, and since this is first and foremost a porn comic, her breasts are larger than seven of her heads. Peter, an abnormally small werewolf, has the only crotch in the world capable of calming her and reverting her to her mousy human form.

Yes, that's right, the most common way to turn a ten-ton titan back to a meek, minuscule maiden is through sexual intercourse. Granted, this is a furry porn comic, so I can't say I'm that surprised, but there IS a difference between writing a porn comic for your readers, and writing one for yourself. And if anyone is the intended audience for Peter is the Wolf, it's Overstreet and Rodriguez.

This Guy Knows Something You Don't

Since werewolfs (or lycanthropes, as the most anal of nerds would insist) are indicative of a transformation fetish, this comic is laden with instances of characters switching from their "wolf form" and "human form" frequently, and require the reader to make a mental note of what both forms look like for a character, and realize that they are, for the most part, interchangeable. Seriously, there are pages where a character can switch back and forth about ten times. Since there's no discernable reason for this, such behavior can come off as confusing and befuddling to the reader. Some pages are also peppered with a dramatic shot of someone spying on our pair of protagonists, but this doesn't really bear any fruit, since we have no idea who these antagonistic spies are, what their motives are, or why we should care that our dynamic duo is even being watched to begin with.

As usual, there is nothing great to say about the art. Characters are wildly inconsistent, and that's just when they try to stay on model. When BAR-1 attempts a tense, wide-eyed shot, it only serves to creep readers right out. The intended expression of shock is submerged in a sea of distorted faces and strange viewing angles. The artist takes most of his artistic cues from popular anime characters, but it's obvious that he is more comfortable drawing wolf-men than humans, judging from how skewed his people end up looking. Again, I should not act surprised. The inconsistency of human characters could also be explained by the artist's excessive cribbing of 'manga' and anime sources, since comic characters will often change proportions, but only between different artists. If this artist is trying to emulate this effect, then he is decidedly worse than the ones who draw their comic right-to-left with tall skinny speech balloons, despite the native language being English. If this is not his intent, then a study of anatomy would be the standard prescription.

Yes, It's Very, Very Wrong

There a few other oddities involved with PitW's composition. On several occasions, the creators have felt it necessary to write, in large letters, "SPIELBERG" behind a surprised character. I would hazard a guess that they are trying to indicate a "spielberg moment," but I guess no one told them that a spielberg moment only occurs in film, and not comics. If you can't indicate surprise without referencing an occurrence in another medium, you really have no business making comics. Additionally, there are times when, instead of drawing backgrounds, Rodriguez has decided to simply use photographic backgrounds. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the epitome of laziness in webcomics. Using photographs for backgrounds is like using actual cardboard as the crust of a pizza. No one is gonna like that pizza.

The porn is blatantly obvious when you run into it, even in the "all-ages" version. Because the artist is lazy, he takes a shortcut--scaling the original image so that the "naughty bits" are out of frame, would work if not for one issue. Changes in resolution within an image are painfully obvious, and this kind of scaling creates a massive neon sign that says "THIS IS NOT RIGHT. SOMETHING IS WEIRD HERE." If the creators are committed to providing two versions of the comic, then they should be willing to redraw panels when necessary, instead of moving things around in Microsoft Picture Editor. While the writer could easily pull apart the important stuff and separate it from the smut, it really falls on both creators to treat both versions of their comic with the dignity it deserves. Why bother putting this stuff out there on the web if you're not going to put your best effort into it?

Personally I promised myself I would never review a porn comic, since its goals are generally not in line with my own. But when a webcomic makes an attempt to be both porn and not-porn, it has committed a violation so egregious that deserves ten times as much ridicule as it will ever receive. The use of furries is merely a giant fluorescent target painted on the webcomic, garnering even more ridicule, as it highlights the creators' flaws and shortcomings. Peter is the Wolf is the most condemnable and wretched implementation of a webcomic I have ever been witness to. Sergei Prokofiev is rolling in his grave. Read more→

Out There: Doonesbury for Beauty School Bimbos

Complacent With Mediocrity, R.C. Monroe Grants Us a Look At His Life

R. C. Monroe's Out There walks into a bar, and says to the bartender "I'd like a terrible webcomic." The bartender says "here you are" and hands him a mirror. Yeah, I know it's not a very good joke, but it was designed as an example rather than something to make you laugh. You see, it's the kind of writing I've come to expect from a comic like Out There, a comic so bland that it makes Blondie look like The Watchmen.

Out There is basically what happens when the valedictorian as the local beauty school decides to make a webcomic, based solely on the fact that they read Doonesbury in the newspaper, liked how it looked but the jokes went over their head. In fact, Out There LOOKS like a crappy knockoff of Doonesbury, and it's formatted like a crappy knockoff of Doonesbury, it just lacks the political satire that made Doonesbury tolerable. Instead, Out There focuses on things the author knows well, like "being an alcoholic" and "being a tramp." Unfortunately, the drunken sex exploits of a twenty-something get old pretty fast, especially since nothing is ever shown. The protagonist's raging alcoholism is never seriously addressed, beyond a friend saying "haha oh you drink too much," and nothing ever happens beyond that. I know I'M glad that this comic isn't trying to force some anti-alcoholism agenda down my throat; if I want to get drunk and beat the hell out of my kids, that's my prerogative.

I Wish My Legs Were Detachable...

I know I've said it before, but Out There is a visual knock-off of Gary Trudeau's work in Doonesbury, but without a clear grasp on anatomy or a clear plan on differentiating characters. The key feature used to distinguish one person from another is the hair, since all body types are generally the same, and clothing is generic and featureless. In fact, this indicates an excessive amount of inspiration taken from Dominic Deegan, though the problem isn't as drastic as that. If you were to remove all hair from every character's face, it would be nigh-impossible to pick out specific people. Characters have few expressions that aren't half-lidded eyes paired with an open mouth. When Monroe does decide to use a wide-eyed expression, the result is generally bizarre and freakish, and ultimately unsettling. The black & white coloring does nothing to generate interest, and the comic would benefit a lot by being in color, or at least grayscale, in order to give the user something interesting to look at in this miserable webcomic.

There's Always One Ironic Panel in Every Webcomic

The writing is also an awful Doonesbury knock-off, in the sense that each strip and plot is structured just like Trudeau would write the 'bury. Unfortunately, Monroe has failed to realize that Doonesbury is done this way because it's a political satire comic, which Out There is decidedly not. In the case of OT, there is no satire, which means each strip should at least offer something interesting to hook new readers. As it is, Out There reads like a long-winded novel with small illustrations under each line of dialogue. Every strip fails to contain anything resembling a joke, and each page instead ends with something that attempts to convey finality but falls short in some significant way. When two characters engage in an intimate situation, nothing is really explored in their characters beyond the shallow characterization that Monroe has already given them. Instead of wallowing in what we already know about these characters, how about delving into their personalities once in a while? You can't attempt to have a comic with one continuous plot, without any meaningful plot development. Even Garfield had a few story arcs that looked deeper into Garfield's character once in a while (before it got homogenized into oblivion). Monroe treats his story like a nature hike where he is pointing out all the interesting things on the trail, but not letting you actually see them for yourself.

Out There is really one of the worst webcomics I've read in a long while. It's even bad at being bad, instead being that insufferable kind of dull that makes it difficult to even form a coherent opinion about. You can easily see the effort put into the comic, and its half-hearted. Monroe has given us a comic developed by simply applying ethereal silly putty to Doonesbury, and rubbing out all the politics before pressing it on to paper. Its characters are as shallow as they come, incapable of submerging the smallest of minds. In the end we are given the most drab, boring and droll webcomic in existence, R. C. Monroe's Out There. I only wish it was out there, and not in here where I am. Read more→

The Year In Review: Best... Worsts of 2008

It's hard to believe I'm still posting on this stupid blog about terrible webcomics. I had originally planned on losing interest sometime around October, but unfortunately I had by then accrued a list of comics to review that was longer than my list of known aliases. So I kept reading awful webcomics and writing down my less-than-professional opinions, and before I knew it, it was the end of the year. I decided that I should make a top 10 list of the worst comics reviewed on anti-snark this year, but after I realized I had only been reviewing for half a year, I shortened it to the top 5. What follows are not just the worst comics, but also the worst responses to my reviews, as well as the worst interview subjects of the multitudes I had interviewed. So without further ado, here are the 5 Best Worsts of 2008.

5. Hijinks Ensue
I don't recall when I first found Hijinks Ensue, but I do remember that my inital reaction was basically "Oh look a ripoff of Movie Comics." After reading more, though, I realized that I had been far too generous. The jokes revolved around moronic television shows and idiotic films, and consisted entirely of nerdwankery.

Visually, it reeks of unoriginality and shameless copying of character designs from more popular webcomics. While this is a common occurrence among terrible artists, usually it isn't so poorly done that you start feeling bad for the ripped off. Whoever said "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery" never experienced the insult that is being imitated by Joel Watson and his rusty, mechanical drawing hand. Perhaps if Watson had a life that didn't consist of sitting on his butt watching television and movies, he'd learn how to give more life and originality to his drawings, but the chances of that (like the chances of Steve Jobs creating something that nerds won't blindly purchase) is slim to none.

The art managed to be utterly reprehensible, despite the fact that the cartoonist uses a Cintiq tablet. There's a reason for this, of course. A great tablet will not make anyone a better artist, no matter how expensive/Mac-friendly it is. Joel Watson is one of the greatest offenders of the "Tools Make the Artist" crowd, which is why Hijinks Ensue receives the award of "Worst Application of a Cintiq Tablet" and is #5 of our list of 2008's Best Worsts.

4. Dead Winter
After four weeks of reviews, I wanted to try something new, so I asked Dave Shabet of Dead Winter if he would bless me with an interview about his terrible zombie webcomic. As I recall, his exact words were "get away from me you skeevy pervert." I tried for over an hour to change his mind but in the end, he wasn't going to budge. I had sunk so many resources into the interview questions, that cancelling it would have meant the end of Anti-Snark, so I came up with a bold solution.

Since Dave Shabet was too good to answer a few questions, I decided that I would answer them as though I were him. I tried to give readers what I felt was an accurate representation of Shabet and his work, but about halfway through answering my own questions I remembered that I had no readers so I felt pressured to jazz the interview up a little bit. The result was an inconsistent personality that I had created for him, and the whole thing was really unbelievable. This is why I have decided to present Dead Winter with the award for "Worst Interview" and placed it fourth in 2008's Best Worsts.

3. Bizarre Uprising
I had added this amalgam of retarded anime tropes and terrible plots to my expanding queue of cannon fodder sometime in September, but every time I looked at it, I decided it wasn't atrocious enough for me to review at that time. When I finally forced myself to take a shot at it, I hoped merely for an underwhelming article as a result. After prodding through the archives, however, I was amazed at how astonishing, how truly horrendous, how utterly ridiculous the plot truly was.

Here's a synopsis: A teenage boy finds out he has magic vampire powers, and begins training with some off-the-wall school mascot that is a pig or something. He gets into fights with people far more experienced than he, only to defeat them because he believes in the heart of the cards or some equally tropish anime facet of his personality. Girls begin to swoon over him for no reason other than he's the artist's fantasy-insert, and even goes so far as to turn a lesbian straight. After one of his ex-girlfriends is shot from 100 yards with a pistol and killed, we find out that the mascot vampire trainer is actually the main character's dad and also that he is the king of vampires. We also learn that Jesus Christ (our one Lord and Savior) is a vampire, and he begat all the other vampires. Meanwhile, the protagonist's best friend seduces the hero's unusually hot and not-at-all parental mother (I'm sensing some disgusting incest fantasy by the artist) AND his girlfriend, then cries foul as he is unconvincingly male-raped. This male-rape subplot extends for nigh on 5 years before it finally concludes unsatisfactorily. The hero does some boring crap that is not even interesting in the slightest, and the reader is left wondering if he missed something in the middle or if the writer simply failed to include some quantity of important details (hint: it's the latter, and that quantity is in the triple-digits).

Needless to say, if you love reading terrible webcomics just to gaze at the ensuing train wreck, none other will satisfy you better than Bizarre Uprising. I only wish I had reviewed it earlier in the year, so I could hope to see some troubled reaction by the creators, who feel it acceptable to only produce one page per week, despite the troubled writing and the sloppy, amateurish artwork. Bizarre Uprising recieves the title of "Worst Webcomic of 2008" and ranks third among our list of the 5 Best Worsts of 2008.

2. Webcomics Beacon
During the month of September, I reviewed the Webcomics Beacon, a terrible podcast about webcomics, as well as the webcomics done by the hosts of the podcast, in order to illustrate that these people should not be doling out advice about webcomics. Shortly after, one of the hosts noticed the review of his comic and decided to take offense, posting predictable rants about how he couldn't believe anyone would spend their time being negative towards webcomics. It's just inconceivable that anyone who enjoys reading these pieces of trash would rather point out the negatives rather than the positives!

I figured he'd quit there, but to my surprise he continued his tirade on the actual podcast itself. He refused to link the big bad review and didn't even give the name of the website, because he didn't want any of his five listeners to give any pageviews to me, since I make so much money off a single page view. I never figured anyone would take my amateurish scrawlings so seriously, so I was quite surprised when I heard what ol' Fesworks had to say. Essentially, he is upset that anyone would bother giving a negative opinion of his work, since he's clearly just a hobbyist and not a professional, and how he gets upset when people are giving professional comic advice, which is not so useful to those who comic for the hobby of it. Of course, this is just code speak for "I want to draw comics but I don't want to put any effort into getting better at it!" Any real hobbyist would still want to put effort into improving his skills so that he could get better.

By devoting so much attention to what was really just a half-hearted negative review of his webcomic and podcast, Fesworks and the Webcomics Beacon crew have earned the title of "Worst Tantrum of 2008" and secured second place in our list of 2008's Best Worsts.

1. The Floating Lightbulb
Our number one spot on the list of worsts goes to the blog that inspired me to return to Anti-snark in the first place. The Floating Lightbulb is a webcomic blog that updates nearly daily, where cartoonist Ben Gordon attempts to give advice to budding cartoonists, thereby elevating himself in the arena of webcomics. Unfortunately, his advice is generally not backed by anyone's experience, and is inspired solely by Gordon's perception of what cartoonists should be doing, rather than anything that might actually work. Gordon is fuelled by his massive ego, tenuous grasp on reality, and fragile self-image.

Often posting lengthy diatribes about websites that do the same thing as one of his many other websites, claiming redundancy and inefficiency, Ben Gordon is quick to write off the webcomics.com guys as some sort of evil corporate empire. Unfortunately what Gordon fails to realize is that his own attempts are shoddy, amateurish and unusable, and ANY attempt to do what he's done is automatically going to be better. Gordon clearly wants to be a webcomic bigwig, but until he can improve the quality of his writing, website organization and comic skills, the best he can do is inflate his standing by acting bigger than he really is. This is why Gordon has been awarded the "Worst Attempt at Being Relevant" and is our Best Worst of 2008.

I hope that reading this has been an adequate time-waster and helped you kill a few minutes. Let the staff of Anti-snark know of any terrible webcomics or webcomic-related sites that you know of, so we can continue to bring you the same hard-hitting journalism next year.

Read more→

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.
Read more→

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.

Read more→

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→

CAR: Ignoring the 'Check Engine' Light for 30,000 Miles (and Counting!)

There are millions of webcomics out there on the internet designed to appeal to niche markets and strange hobbies. No matter your interests, there is probably a webcomic that caters to them. Even if those interests are really dumb. But no matter how dumb the hobby, there are people who are really into these things. I guess maybe they seem dumb to me but these people really enjoy them so who am I to knock it? Or so I thought, until I met possibly the dumbest hobby-comic ever.

CAR (the author insists on the all-caps title of this abomination) is about driving around in a car. That is pretty much the premise of the entire comic. You can probably imagine the kinds of jokes that arise from car driving, and how Jeffrey Faden has managed to stretch this into 250 strips is mind-boggling. Granted, about half of them are about CAR ending or restarting; the joke has been used so much, it's collecting Social Security checks. As for other jokes, "WOAH MY CAR HAS A LOT OF BUTTONS AND SWITCHES!" gets dull fast. Driving like an old man isn't funny either. Basically there are two jokes about cars and they're both pretty bad already.

CAR reeks of the same technophilic MacFaggotry that rubs most people the wrong way. I know you think you're cool, Jeff, but no one cares about whatever gadget you got that provides marginal utility. An obsession with techno music is just an extension of technophilia, because people can act snooty and pretentious about obscure DJs that no one will ever hear, and they sound terrible anyways. If someone you know won't shut up about techno music, then they have also drunk the Apple Kool-Aid (that actually sounds pretty rad, apple flavored Kool-Aid) and you should probably cut all ties with them.

There is very little artistic difference between the earliest comic and the latest comic. Apart from the addition to gradient coloring, the characters look like strange amalgamations of old, cheap anime, and crude doodles done in the back of Freshman Lit. There is no need for more than one pose, since all characters are just talking heads used to further a dialog. And the characters have no consistent characterization, they are simply used arbitrarily to provide a foil to (or give aid to) the author-insert's wacky shenanigans. They are not people, but voices heard by the author that he responds to and interacts with. Essentially, there is only one character, and that is Jeffrey.

Despite grave reservations, I decided to track down Jeff Faden and ask him what, if anything, inspired him to keep coming back to this awful webcomic. Surprisingly, he consented to an interview. My most ardent readers will remember once before when I did an interview, the difference this time is that I'm actually interviewing someone else. So without further ado, I present a depressing interview with an unhinged individual: Jeffrey Faden, author of CAR.

Anti-Snark: CAR has been around for about 6 years; have you learned anything about comic making in that time, and if so, why haven't you applied it to CAR?

Jeffrey Faden: My greatest comicking education comes from Scott McCloud's timeless book, Reinventing Comics, where he leverages the power of the Internet as a content delivery medium that reaches consumers across the world and touches them with the magic of juxtaposed pictoral (or other) images in a deliberate sequence. I've learned, by studying that book, that you don't need to put forth anything with acceptable art, writing, layout, or sense of humor - what is more important is whether your webcomic is accessible to people in wheelchairs and fires off all of its JavaScript successfully. This is why CAR is valid XHTML and looks pretty much worse, and has less readers, than it did in 2002.

AS: God, that's pretentious as fuck. Now, CAR has been stopped and restarted 5 or 6 times. Why do you keep going back to the same failed comic instead of trying something fresh and new? Are you afraid of success, or just change?

JF: It's kind of you to suggest that success would be the result of future endeavours in comickery! Rather, I would see success as the total halting of CAR altogether, along with a pledge to never create another comic again. But just between you and me, I've got a secret - the reason CAR has no ads and does not advertise is because its revenue is more than taken care of by formerly Honda Motor Company, and now Toyota Motor Corporation executives who pay me large sums of cash for every frame in which one of their cars appears. (This is why I have made so many comics that repeat the same frame over and over.) Unfortunately, one reason for a 3-year hiatus is due to a giant legal battle with Honda in which I plead to stop making CARs, resulting in the reclamation of my actual car. Fortunately, this also resulted in the end of CAR, until I foolishly forged the same agreement with Toyota three years later. It seems as if I will be forever doomed to make mundane traces of the interiors of a Prius, passing a tedious process off as actual talent.

In summary, it's because I am very rich.

AS: Too bad you still can't afford any talent. Your art is sloppy and your writing is miserable. Which reminds me, why is it that there really aren't any consistent characters in CAR? You just seem to pick from a character design based on someone you know, and then write them in a way that you feel fits the comic. Are you just incompetent, or are the people you know really this inconsistent?

JF: Here's the process:
1. Person I marginally know wants to be put in CAR.
2. I decide I might as well, because I have nothing else to write about.
3. Person doesn't realize they've been put in CAR because I don't tend to keep up with people I've met in real life.
4. I use the character for a considerable amount of time and eventually twist their personality into an unlikeable, completely uncharacteristic mess.
5. Eventually the person notices they're still being used, and removes me from their Facebook friends list.
6. I pretend the character never existed; process repeats.

AS: That sounds like a load of BS. Have you ever considered attending a workshop on writing jokes or drawing people so they don't look like they have a genetic defect where they appear half anime?

JF: When it comes to improving my craft, I like to heed the words of my favorite contemporaries, Mookie and Absath - "if they're buyin', no use in tryin'." Of course, in my case, people aren't buyin', but I like to humor myself into thinking that they would if I cared enough to sell something.

Also, "Half anime" is probably the best compliment I have ever gotten.

AS: Who is your mechanic?

JF: Jesus. The Jesus that atheists worship.

AS: I don't think he's a licensed mechanic.

JF: That would explain the chorus of angels every time I turn on the air conditioner.

AS: Don't you know A/C ruins your gas mileage? If you really loved the planet you wouldn't use it. You don't hate the planet, do you?

JF: CAR still exists. Isn't that your answer?

AS: I'm afraid so.

As you can see, Jeffrey is clearly an imbalanced individual, who values his iPod more than his suspension. Making a comic about cars might not be a bad idea if you are focusing on maintenance or whatever (and actually know anything about cars), but if you're making a comic about just driving cars, you might want to rethink whether people consider you an interesting person or not. If your comic isn't interesting, then no one is going to read it, because it's just that dull. 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→