TWCL

[munkymu]

Clint Wolf wrote:

So all right, I'll retract my opinion of the statement as being useless. However, although I remember the statement clearly, I can't for the life of me remember what the comic was. Can anyone help me find it? You see, it's like Penny Arcade... that's a short list, right?

But you've already said that you had a negative reaction to the statement, so you are one of the people they drove away forever. Isn't that great? You don't ever have to remember what their comic is because chances are it's everything you don't want to read in a comic.

I guess you could still find it by accident, but the odds are that they quit 6 months after starting it anyway so you're probably good.
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[BKO_Monkey]

munkymu wrote:

BKO_Monkey wrote: I'm saying maybe we should avoid this practice as fellow cartoonists and accept those comics for what they are. If you want to get meta, I'm bitching about the bitching :p. I think that really you're doing the same thing that the people you are complaining about are doing -- telling people what not to do. Your motives may be better but the way you go about it still smacks of hypocrisy. Having re-read your post I think that it's less bad than I first thought from the opinion standpoint, but that's because it's so content-free and empty that you might as well not have written it. You could have said much the same thing in a couple of sentences: "We are professionals, fellow comic creators. Let's act like professionals and not be dicks to other bigger professionals like The Oatmeal and xkcd." And then you could have used those other eight pagaraphs to write something interesting like "What are the consequences of being a dick? Let's ask a dick and find out!" or "What does it mean to be a professional and why should the average hobbyist comic creator care?" or even "Are there any legitimate reasons for disliking The Oatmeal and xkcd?" But you didn't. You stopped just short of the meaty bits so all we get is a big of soggy crust and a desire to send you a dictionary. Clint Wolf wrote: At a webcomics panel I attended this year, it was opened up to the audience to stand up and promote a webcomic they liked. I clearly remember one guy who recommended his friend's comic, and when asked what it was about, he quite literally said this: "It's like Penny Arcade, but it's actually funny." I thought that was a particularly useless, not to mention mean-spirited statement. If your comic's only identity can be boiled down to "It's just like this other really popular comic, only it doesn't suck!", you've got problems, and Penny Arcade/xkcd/etc. aren't to blame for them. Actually I think that this is great. It's exactly why I think that people should be free to give their opinions. We now have a really good idea of what kind of people these comic guys are. They put it out there and now they're going to have to live up to that to all the frothing Penny Arcade fans who go to their site (who, by the way, don't mind assholes in the least). If they don't those fans will rip them a new one. It's the perfect example of giving your opinion and then having to take the consequences. Also, with one comment they have managed to drive away all the people who likely wouldn't enjoy their work. I like it.

My issue isn't with people telling others what to do or think, it's with others not being constructive or helpful in any way. People are free to say whatever they want, it's a free internet. If someone wants to be an asshole, that's their right. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." But if you're being a total dick, people may call you on it. That's the other side of freedom, there can be consequences/reactions to what you say freely. If I tell people I don't think they should be a dick after calling someone on it, how does that make me a hypocrite? I don't think people should put down other comics or creators. Period. That's my opinion, and some may like it (which I'm hoping for) and some won't. And you can also disagree with that if you want, it's just my opinion and yours may be different.

Mostly (in the blog) I just wanted to illustrate the issue in a way that compares it to how people talk about bands and I thought it was and interesting parallel. I think I was having a lot more fun with matching which comics match up with which bands instead of actually making a concise point (that and I get easily distracted by shiny things).

btw, I checked out Goth Bunnies, you've got some really nice stuff there, I love the art on the most recent ones. And I laughed my ass off at the taxidermy one on Crummy Comics

[Metruis]

Hm. I'm not really a fan of certain popular comics and I don't really hide it or advertise it. Do I think other people should not read them? Not at all! If you enjoy popular-comic-here by all means, knock yourself out. I think the Oatmeal is pretty funny even though it's a bit lower than my usual standards... being primarily a graphic novel/srs business comic reader.

There absolutely are legitimate reasons for not liking certain popular comics. Penny Arcade may have been groundbreaking once, but now it's just generic commentary on games I'll probably never play, and hence the references fall short. XKCD is artistically unstriking and is intended for office drones who'll print out the comics and send them to their buddies, really. But they both appeal to very wide groups of people... gamers, people who like math and science, etc. I'm not in that demographic, but even though I'm not, I'm not going to say "and you should never ever like this comic". If you do, great! I don't.

Which leads me to a point:

I hate when people say "you have to like this comic/book/movie/series/whatever", generally "in order to keep geek cred" or "because it is the best thing ever and OMFGFROTHATMOUTHNOONECANHATEIT". I hate this as much as I hate people saying "no one should like this because it's trash". I respect that there are people who like Twilight. I am just not in the demographic.

But see, this bugs me. I like Lord of the Rings but I wouldn't force it down someone's throat, and frankly I don't think people should try copy writing Tolkien's style, they should make their own. I don't really like Firefly and I'm sick of people telling me that I really really should watch and love this series.

There's nothing wrong with genuine constructive criticism of popular works. For example, I don't like Twilight because I find the main character to be an insipid waste of time and ink, but rather than posting "Everyone needs to hate Bella" I would rather post that I find the generic every-girl template to be unoriginal and the fact that this book attempts to push the clumsy, selfish, self-hating template as "this is being a good normal girl" at me puts me off. Other people love it BECAUSE of the every-girl template. But I read books where girls kicked ass, not flung themselves at male-hero to be rescued. This constructive criticism is not a bad thing; because you're using a popular work many people will be familiar with, they'll be able to understand and visualize the point. For a budding creator, or an ongoing creator or even a well established creator, the knowledge that a generic every-girl template narrator is grating to some readers might be just what they needed to know when writing their next thing.

Posting TWILIGHT SUX AND NO ONE SHOULD EVER READ IT EVER will achieve nothing but establish you as a frothing-at-the-mouth hater. This is like the relationship between my sister and Justin Beiber. She absolutely hates his music and doesn't think anyone should listen to his not-music ever. I think she's just out of the demographic his music appeals to, though maybe not that much because she's a Lady Gaga fangirl.

So TL;DR: Ripping on comics doesn't get anywhere. Constructive criticism, however, can be helpful for everyone! Yay, constructive criticism! Even if I don't like Penny Arcade I respect that some people do and find it rater irritating when people post about how they hate popular things.
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[munkymu]

BKO_Monkey wrote:

btw, I checked out Goth Bunnies, you've got some really nice stuff there, I love the art on the most recent ones. And I laughed my ass off at the taxidermy one on Crummy Comics

That, sir, is a lot of butter and let it not be said that I can't be buttered up. So sure, The Oatmeal can be Nickelback. I refuse to hate either of 'em!
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