The Critical Miss Experience

[Bara_no_Hime]

The Critical Miss Experience

Eat it, Dobbin.

I hate to break it to you and your stick, Mr. Carter, but you are very clearly using a parody stick and calling it a satire stick. There is a subtle but important literary difference between parody (which is what you do to Evangelion) and satire.

A parody is written about something the author likes. The author pokes fun at flaws, but at the end of the day it is all in good humor and done for laughs.

A satire is written about something the author dislikes. The author lambasts the flaws in an attempt to create change. Satire is not done in good humor or just for laughs, but to create a shift in feelings, attitude, or public response. "A Modest Proposal" is an excellent example of satire.

Your parodies of Evangelion are wonderfully fun because you clearly know Evangelion so well. You can make subtle in-jokes in your parodies. And, while making fun of it, you show your reader how much you truly love it.

That is all.

...

Oh, and wrong thread, but I loved your rant about Art last week. I've book marked it for future quotation.

 

[Grach]

Woah woah woah.....you're supposed to understand Evangelion?!

I just watch it to see giant robots in battle with monsters and to oggle Asuka.

Watch the rebuilds then. They're a lot more action heavy.

 

[Something Amyss]

What's next, poking bronies?

There's satire and there's jock humor, rubbing elbows and laughing at the nerds.

Yes, because jocks totally take the time to understand the source material before mocking the base (you know, what they've done previously). This comic in itself is mocking the overreaction the NGE fanbase tends to have. I'm going out on a limb and guessing you're one of the fans and kind of falling into that exact pattern.

And while we're at it, I have a question. And be honest: did you work backwards from "I don't like this comic" to try and engineer a "problem" with it?

 

[Something Amyss]

A parody is written about something the author likes. The author pokes fun at flaws, but at the end of the day it is all in good humor and done for laughs.

A satire is written about something the author dislikes. The author lambasts the flaws in an attempt to create change. Satire is not done in good humor or just for laughs, but to create a shift in feelings, attitude, or public response. "A Modest Proposal" is an excellent example of satire.

Well, that was outright false. Satire can be readily used for something one likes, since one can acknowledge flaws within the concept or material. It also doesn't actually have to be for social change--it just frequently is.

But that aside, it's also clearly a "poke the base" stick, which is neither satire or parody.

 

[wooty]

Woah woah woah.....you're supposed to understand Evangelion?!

I just watch it to see giant robots in battle with monsters and to oggle Asuka.

Watch the rebuilds then. They're a lot more action heavy.

I've watched all three so far.....they left me feeling more scared, alone and confused than the full series and "end of" additions. A little too light on the Asuka front as well.

 

[Saltyk]

It only riles up people who care enough about someone making fun of something they like.

Jokes are always about exaggeration and misinterpretation, if someone can't recognise that then they probably never laughed at anything.

Ever.

That's kind of a convenient excuse to disregard any criticism. "It's your own fault for getting riled up about us constantly being up in your face about how ridiculous you are."

I'm not against making jokes at someone's expense, but when you pick the same target again and again it starts to resemble, as someone already mentioned, jock behaviour.

I just want to say this.

As a Dragon Ball Z fan, some of my favorite comics, videos, and pictures openly mock the show. DBZ Abridged is Gold. I've seen several parodies that mocked it and enjoyed them thoroughly.

More often than not, I like things that mock things I like. Because, I am never so blind as not to see the flaws. Nor do I take them too seriously. As long as the parody is good, and the jokes hit a mark, I will enjoy it.

And like Daystar was saying, they are obviously making fun of themselves as much as anything else.

 

[NiPah]

Was it really the comic strip that had the fans up in arms? I think you guys might be taking too much credit, for the most part it's the little nuggets of wisdom shit out from follow up comments that Eva fans get up in arms over.

 

[Something Amyss]

That's kind of a convenient excuse to disregard any criticism. "It's your own fault for getting riled up about us constantly being up in your face about how ridiculous you are."

I'm not against making jokes at someone's expense, but when you pick the same target again and again it starts to resemble, as someone already mentioned, jock behaviour.

Yeah, they've done what? Three, four comics over a period of what? Months, a year? That's not constantly being up in someone's face. That's someone being hyper-defensive.

The fact that people are calling this a "constant" offense and describe it as "again and again" borders on the absurd and does more to make NGE fans look ridiculous than the comics do. Except the second one, which uses quotes from the fanbase.

So far, two of the comics have really been up in the face of the fans. The first wasn't. The "fuck anyone" one wasn't. People just got super hostile because they didn't like the source material being poked fun at. I'd wager a bunch of these people are the same ones who tell women, gays and black people to "take a joke," and I KNOW I've seen a few of the same people telling everyone to "take a joke" about the kid who said he was going to shoot up a school full of kids. So rape and child murder are acceptable targets for humour, but NGE is sacrosanct?

Not specifically aimed at you, Shinji, but this is a fanbase that needs to get over themselves. and stop finding offense in something that wasn't aimed at them in the first place. Otherwise, they're kind of fulfilling a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hey, anyone more dedicated than me interested in looking at how many topics Critical Miss has covered more often than this one? I'm betting the numbers would be delicious. I mean, they actually made a whole comic arc going after the fact that Gabe Newell could effectively pull the plug on Steam and satirising the concept of ownership in the digital era to less histrionic effect from fans of the product in question.

 

[Olas]

Is this seriously what you're going to do EVERY SINGLE TIME you can't think of what to make? Are you NEVER gonna stop beating this dead horse? Seriously, if you can't find any new material to use, then go back and make comics about old games, or political issues, or whatever. The constant piling of Evangelion comics isn't even funny more, it's just boring and predictable.

You're overreacting to a joke about how overreactive Eva fans are.

Just thought I'd point that out

 

[Something Amyss]

I just want to say this.

As a Dragon Ball Z fan, some of my favorite comics, videos, and pictures openly mock the show. DBZ Abridged is Gold. I've seen several parodies that mocked it and enjoyed them thoroughly.

More often than not, I like things that mock things I like. Because, I am never so blind as not to see the flaws. Nor do I take them too seriously. As long as the parody is good, and the jokes hit a mark, I will enjoy it.

And like Daystar was saying, they are obviously making fun of themselves as much as anything else.

I was going to quote this in my last post, but I felt it went on too long already.

There is no show I follow, no entertainment product I enjoy so sacrosanct that I cannot enjoy jokes at the expense of the item in question. There should be some basis in reality, of course, but I expect any flaw to be magnified and distorted.

And while I'm loathe to say "I'm okay with it, so should you," I find it hard to imagine any show being so off limits that jokes should be this level of offensive. The Abridged series, like the DBZ ones you mentioned, work better if you're a fan than not (though I still enjoy what my girlfriend has made me watch of Yu Gi Oh abridged, and all I know about the shows it there's a card game). These jokes tend to work better for the initiated, though that's not necessarily true here (the "fuck her" joke from a prior CM is something I assume could be inferred as funny by anyone with a scrap of sense).

So yeah, I agree. I have a blast with people mocking Doctor Who and Stargate and Harry Potter. I just don't understand this world in which entertainment is such super serious business it can't be poked.

 

[Grach]

Woah woah woah.....you're supposed to understand Evangelion?!

I just watch it to see giant robots in battle with monsters and to oggle Asuka.

Watch the rebuilds then. They're a lot more action heavy.

I've watched all three so far.....they left me feeling more scared, alone and confused than the full series and "end of" additions. A little too light on the Asuka front as well.

Damn it! I could've sworn that you'd like the new Asuka suit.

 

[Something Amyss]

Is this seriously what you're going to do EVERY SINGLE TIME you can't think of what to make?

Yes. Yes, that's precisely what they said. This webcomic is actually a binding agreement, and if they don't, they could go to jail. DO YOU WANT THEM TO GO TO JAIL?????

But seriously, you're taking a comic that's not taking itself seriously way too seriously. Not only are you overreacting to a joke about people overreacting, you're taking it as though it's also a future promise. Which, because of the reactions here, promises to be a future recurring deal.

Are you NEVER gonna stop beating this dead horse?

The three non-response comics they've made regarding NGE have all touched upon different subjects. That's not beating a dead horse.

The constant piling of Evangelion comics isn't even funny more, it's just boring and predictable.

I don't get this portrayal as constant. There have been what? Four comics? Looking through both the Escapist and Google, that appears to be accurate. Four comics in aboot a year? That's constant? That's predictable? What?

 

[Basement Cat]

If you're experiencing a drought then BRING BACK PENNY! Woo-hoo!!!

And the other's in Erin's workplace.

Some of us miss them... D:

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Question: Am I the only person who liked "Nadia and the Secret Blue Water" more than "Evangelion"?

No you aren't because Evangelion is a rather weird animal. All those people are totally correct when they talk about it being really important to mecha anime and actually pretty revolutionary, and it isn't a bad show. However it's not a show I'd like to go back and rewatch. You see it once, read about what's really supposed to go on, maybe watch a couple parts of it again,and then you're done. I think it's worth watching, but I don't think it's necessarily worth rewatching.

True enough. I never really saw it as a "mecha anime" though. Really, the story is about the author surrogate, the main character, learning to come to terms with immense sorrow and love himself again. Which is fine. I actually liked the fact that the finale of the series had no mecha battles at all.

But therein lies a problem, particularly because the fan base of the anime was so rabid that they sent death threats to the creator after the finale aired. It was never a show to be taken literally, but I am afraid many people cannot understand that.

The reason I brought up "Nadia" was because it was made by the same person, and in my opinion is a better show. It deals more subtly with social and economic issues without being so. . . aggressively metaphoric.

 

[1337mokro]

It's not complete.... something is missing.

Oh yeah the Evangelion haters (me included) cheering them on.

A dude wearing a "Cry more Shinji" shirt saying "You need a bigger, pointier stick"?

That's a really lazy satire stick, you could at least make it shiny or something.

No more like this.

 

[thanatos388]

I just watched EVA for the first time last week and came here straight from the imdb page for EVA. If there is a god he is trying way too hard to screw with me.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Reaching for that low hanging fruit again I see lads

 

[Something Amyss]

I just watched EVA for the first time last week and came here straight from the imdb page for EVA. If there is a god he is trying way too hard to screw with me.

Actually, that's Shirley from accounting. She gets bored from time to time and decides to screw around with mortals. We're like Farmville to them.

Well, without the microtransactions.

This isn't really funny, and satire that's really satirical for the sake of it and is aimless in doing is is even less funny. This is all sorts of not funny.

Please start being funny again

It's possible they didn't mean the "satire stick" to actually be literally taken as satire. It's also possible this is a little self-deprecating humour. Probably not, but just maybe.

Of course, if you're talking about the aspect of satirizing the NGE fanbase, I wouldn't call it aimless. It seems to have a clear aim, merely a pointless one: to demonstrate the end result of being an easy mark. Since internet fanbases that take themselves too seriously tend to lack a certain aspect of self-awareness that allows them to understand that they are often feeding into the exact cycle a comic like this is inevitably commenting on, and since NGE fans seem to be demonstrating that they fall into that pattern, I would call it futile. However, there's clearly an aim. Two, really, depending on the path you think they're taking.

Either they're commenting on the response I just mentioned, or they're doing exactly what the comic implies and poking NGE fans for hits. The latter aim isn't even satire, so criticism of it on a satirical level falls flat.

The funny thing is that even if the former is true, the latter will still incentivise them to do it more.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Coincidentally, I'm planning on a watchthrough of the Rebuild movies next week, while my parents are out of town and I can use my home theater unmolested. Seeing Pacific Rim kind of put me in the mood -- and no, I'm not saying they're the same. They're just similar enough that watching one seems to put me in the mood to watch the other, like Stargate and The Fifth Element.