I have dyslexia and I'm just careful and check what I've typed. The simple act of taking a deep breath would negate your excuse. Better luck next time.KrabbiPatty said:
Zero Punctuation: Webcomics
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
...I'd just like to say "Thank you" to everyone on this thread who checked out my comic, [http://the-gil-monster.deviantart.com/gallery/#_browse/cartoons] I got at least 100 page views today, and I'm beting that a lot of that was from you guys.
Again, thanks very much.
Again, thanks very much.
Thanks for that, that CYOA thing was pretty good, possibly my favorite part of Ctrl+Alt+Del. Now that I think about it, if the comic was completely like that, it would've been of much higher quality.MercFox1 said:
Yeah, I knew the AVGN vs NC fight was done as a joke. I was just trying to say that those kind of back-and-forths work far, far better when it's done as a joke and BOTH people doing it are genuinely funny. That way you can be entertained by both "sides" of it.
Will you be MY friend?Ultrajoe said:
I am so totally pro-skub.Arntor said:
@ Everybody flaming: if I wasn't too lazy to go find the Arguing on the Internet = Special Olympics picture I would use it about now... then we just need someone to make a Tim/Yahtzee is a Nazi comment and invoke Godwin's law and this comment flame fest would be complete.
Cheers
While this is looking more and more like the MGS review, I may as well try to toss out my two cents. Nothing like some well reasoned arguments to offset the asstards.
To start with, I fully understand why some people like CAD. Some people like Family Circus as well. Neither come of ass funny for the most part. They rely on a demographic. Family Circus has old people who find it "cute" which translates to a chuckle. CAD relies on gamer/internet references which frequently fall as just that, references to something that exists. Not particularly funny, but since people tend to enjoy a sense of familiarity they go "I know about that! This guy is pretty funny."
Now, I wouldn't even care about CAD all that much if it wasn't popular or Buckley wasn't such a water-head. Had he designed the comic in the same way that Davis designed Garfield, I'd actually respect him. The problem is that he didn't. He truly believes himself to be an artist and a man with a lick of humor and will go to crazy lengths to "defend himself"
Ignoring "ze penis incident" and Buckley as a "person" as a whole, why not hop into a few good reasons to dislike CAD based solely on it's own flaws?
THE ART - Flat. There isn't much more to say. There has been little to no development over the years. With the exception of moving over to Adobe Illustrator for the linework, the "art style" has stayed almost entirely static. The biggest problem with that is the adherence to the early method of facial construction. Each character seems to be suffering from various levels of retardation. I don't say that in a humorous sense, I say it in the "they all have varying levels of slack jaws and half-closed eyes." They look like people who've recently hit their head very, VERY, hard and are in the process of recovering. Even without their plastic expressions, the characters frequently deform when anything other than a 3/4 shot is attempted. Proportion and perspective go out the window. Look at any strip with a different angle and you can find at least one or two major flaws. Ignoring BOTH of those, he copy/pasts characters constantly. The man has a pallet of "expressions" for gods sake. Depressingly enough, the one time he breaks from his B^U style of facial expression he manages to slap on an utterly ridiculous looking one in it's stead undercutting the feeling he was attempting to go for. The irony is delicious there. The characters are also frequently cobbled together from a pallet similar to the one for expressions. Once again, ctrl-c ctrl-v is never a good thing, with express exceptions, none of which apply to CAD. Assuming you want to ignore all that, the guy blatantly rips backgrounds from other sources then runs them through a filter. It's not even subtle. The least he could do is to go the same route the "Real Life" guys did and use mainly gradients for backgrounds. I believe they broke away from this a while ago, but that's not the point. The point is that Buckley should at least attempt to do a background of some sort instead of just liberally sprinkling in images taken by other people.
THE WRITING - The Sahara is an ocean, comparatively. Now, that only applies to his "serious" strips such as the recent miscarriage story-arc. Aside from the deus-ex-machina reason for the miscarriage, the characters are wooden and lifeless. They react in inhuman ways to the "tragedy" and no, I won't remove those quotes. That arc was a tragedy in the same way dropping your dinner on the floor is. The sad fact is that when something like this happens in real life it tears people apart. Even the most apathetic and heartless of people such as myself feel a pang of pity when hearing of these events, to say nothing of the way people involved will feel. Lets think about this, if you heard your unborn child had died, would you
A) Spend every waking moment attempting to console your spouse or significant other while simultaneously attempting to deal with your personal feelings.
B) Leave them by themselves so they can have time to recuperate and attempt to work through the pain as best you can by yourself.
C) Play video games with your buddy.
This borders on insulting. I don't care if video games bring you orgasmic joy, you don't go to them when you're grieving over your DEAD CHILD! I relish schadenfreude in all its many various forms and even I couldn't do that. Personal feelings aside, Ethan must have some crazy ass chops to not be an emotional wreck over this considering it's claimed better and brighter. Also, why would you talk about having ANOTHER at this point? That...I can't even describe how stupid that is. Now, on to the "jokes". As stated earlier, all he has is referential humor, and he doesn't even do it that well. He blows his load early every time, jamming the joke into the first or second panel and leaving the reader wondering why it's still going. The worst part of it all is that if he could abandon the 4 panel format and overly verbose dialogs he could actually be competent in that area. I realize Yahtzee already stated this, but it really is the heart of the issue when it comes to the humor.
SUMMATION - As a whole, CAD is pain, but comes off as something that has potential assuming the writer/artist can free his head from the confines of his colon.
To start with, I fully understand why some people like CAD. Some people like Family Circus as well. Neither come of ass funny for the most part. They rely on a demographic. Family Circus has old people who find it "cute" which translates to a chuckle. CAD relies on gamer/internet references which frequently fall as just that, references to something that exists. Not particularly funny, but since people tend to enjoy a sense of familiarity they go "I know about that! This guy is pretty funny."
Now, I wouldn't even care about CAD all that much if it wasn't popular or Buckley wasn't such a water-head. Had he designed the comic in the same way that Davis designed Garfield, I'd actually respect him. The problem is that he didn't. He truly believes himself to be an artist and a man with a lick of humor and will go to crazy lengths to "defend himself"
Ignoring "ze penis incident" and Buckley as a "person" as a whole, why not hop into a few good reasons to dislike CAD based solely on it's own flaws?
THE ART - Flat. There isn't much more to say. There has been little to no development over the years. With the exception of moving over to Adobe Illustrator for the linework, the "art style" has stayed almost entirely static. The biggest problem with that is the adherence to the early method of facial construction. Each character seems to be suffering from various levels of retardation. I don't say that in a humorous sense, I say it in the "they all have varying levels of slack jaws and half-closed eyes." They look like people who've recently hit their head very, VERY, hard and are in the process of recovering. Even without their plastic expressions, the characters frequently deform when anything other than a 3/4 shot is attempted. Proportion and perspective go out the window. Look at any strip with a different angle and you can find at least one or two major flaws. Ignoring BOTH of those, he copy/pasts characters constantly. The man has a pallet of "expressions" for gods sake. Depressingly enough, the one time he breaks from his B^U style of facial expression he manages to slap on an utterly ridiculous looking one in it's stead undercutting the feeling he was attempting to go for. The irony is delicious there. The characters are also frequently cobbled together from a pallet similar to the one for expressions. Once again, ctrl-c ctrl-v is never a good thing, with express exceptions, none of which apply to CAD. Assuming you want to ignore all that, the guy blatantly rips backgrounds from other sources then runs them through a filter. It's not even subtle. The least he could do is to go the same route the "Real Life" guys did and use mainly gradients for backgrounds. I believe they broke away from this a while ago, but that's not the point. The point is that Buckley should at least attempt to do a background of some sort instead of just liberally sprinkling in images taken by other people.
THE WRITING - The Sahara is an ocean, comparatively. Now, that only applies to his "serious" strips such as the recent miscarriage story-arc. Aside from the deus-ex-machina reason for the miscarriage, the characters are wooden and lifeless. They react in inhuman ways to the "tragedy" and no, I won't remove those quotes. That arc was a tragedy in the same way dropping your dinner on the floor is. The sad fact is that when something like this happens in real life it tears people apart. Even the most apathetic and heartless of people such as myself feel a pang of pity when hearing of these events, to say nothing of the way people involved will feel. Lets think about this, if you heard your unborn child had died, would you
A) Spend every waking moment attempting to console your spouse or significant other while simultaneously attempting to deal with your personal feelings.
B) Leave them by themselves so they can have time to recuperate and attempt to work through the pain as best you can by yourself.
C) Play video games with your buddy.
This borders on insulting. I don't care if video games bring you orgasmic joy, you don't go to them when you're grieving over your DEAD CHILD! I relish schadenfreude in all its many various forms and even I couldn't do that. Personal feelings aside, Ethan must have some crazy ass chops to not be an emotional wreck over this considering it's claimed better and brighter. Also, why would you talk about having ANOTHER at this point? That...I can't even describe how stupid that is. Now, on to the "jokes". As stated earlier, all he has is referential humor, and he doesn't even do it that well. He blows his load early every time, jamming the joke into the first or second panel and leaving the reader wondering why it's still going. The worst part of it all is that if he could abandon the 4 panel format and overly verbose dialogs he could actually be competent in that area. I realize Yahtzee already stated this, but it really is the heart of the issue when it comes to the humor.
SUMMATION - As a whole, CAD is pain, but comes off as something that has potential assuming the writer/artist can free his head from the confines of his colon.
Other ranting aside, I'm curious. Why is that? They were both reasonably well written with information cited to support the assertions of the writer. I fail to see why you would feel stupid...or stupid-ER...From having read them with the express exception being an inability to understand them. Not trying to call you an idiot here, but, yeah, I guess that IS where it's going unless you can give me some insight.Crusnik said:
As a user of Firefox, the browser has a spellcheck system already in place. It's handy dandy!...Just tossing that out there.greygelgoog said:
Has anyone in this topic compared the miscarriage arc to Dominic Deegan's infamous rape arc yet? There seem many similarities between them...
Anyway, the problem with webcomics is that that it's absurdly easy to get into. Other fields, like comic strips, have various "filters" in place to get rid of bad comics. They're far from perfect; plenty of bad ones get through and plenty of good ones never make it. But webcomics have no filters whatsoever, resulting in most of them, like most of fanfiction, being terrible. There are good webcomics; Yahtzee even lists his favorites here [http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/features/goodcomics.htm], and I think Order of the Stick is better than most actual published comics. But the good ones are far, far outnumbered by the bad.
Anyway, the problem with webcomics is that that it's absurdly easy to get into. Other fields, like comic strips, have various "filters" in place to get rid of bad comics. They're far from perfect; plenty of bad ones get through and plenty of good ones never make it. But webcomics have no filters whatsoever, resulting in most of them, like most of fanfiction, being terrible. There are good webcomics; Yahtzee even lists his favorites here [http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/features/goodcomics.htm], and I think Order of the Stick is better than most actual published comics. But the good ones are far, far outnumbered by the bad.
Really? You're basing your interpretation of them on how they look from a picture you saw? Not even stories about them, just their appearance? Thats the most beautifully shallow attitude I've ever seen.Karpiel said:
Which is what I like about him so much. I'll admit freely that his attacks on JRPGs got me at first, but I learned to calm my over reactionary ass down and look it as it was, and it was fucking brilliant. I think he's a fantastic satirist. A giant fucking douche, yes, but a fantastic satirist none the less.Uzsi said:
I could never really get into Cyanide & Happiness since it always just seemed as if it was the webcomic equivalent of Family Guy with its "lol random" sense of humor.Forwen said:
It shouldn't be as difficult as it seems to be, no. The thing is, the main problem is the over saturation of the gaming webcomic population. It's a lot like in the early/mid nineties when every evening cartoon was trying to be like the Simpsons. Too many just floundered and failed to be too much like it. Of course, this isn't the reason CAD fails; there are several other reasons for that, such as the copy/paste art style and general lack of personification and character development for the characters.binturong said:
First, I hope to god you're kidding about those being your most beloved webcomics when there are so many that are far better than it, such as Achewood, Dr. McNinja, and Lackadaisy Cats, and Templar,Arizona.Thaius said:
Secondly, Buckley failed to pull off the miscarriage storyline, and failed horribly. The main part of this is that there's simply nothing to have liked about the characters in the first place, especially since they haven't developed at all since their original appearances. Ethan isn't a "wacky" character; his behavior is much more like that of a sociopath, and for some reason the characters put up with it despite the fact that he constantly endangers/pisses them off with his complete horrible and hateable personality. Lucas has no personality at all except to be a failing straight man to Ethan's "wackiness". Lilah, meanwhile, is the exact same, except she loves Ethan, despite the fact that there's nothing commendable, attractive, or likeable about him. Zeke is just Ethan, except he's a CA-RAAAZYY robot. They're all cookie-cutter characters, and to say they're unique, or possess traits that would make you love them, is idiotic.
Not only that, but his huge rant on the front page for the miscarriage reveal basically showed him as being kind of a prick. But that's just me, so that can't be used as objective evidence.
Or, if we wanted shallow and meaningless humor, we could read Buckley's Chef Brian and Player 1/2/3/4 comics. Those are the epitome of shallow and meaningless humor.Thaius said:
David_Cat, you are the best troll ever and I love you. Please let me have your retarded man baby.David_Cat said:
I agree that whether or not Tim Buckley is a **** shouldn't have an effect on the judgment of his artwork, as even the most soulless monster could conceivably create the most beautiful portrait. That being said, let me give you a few reasons why I think CAD is trash.thebobmaster said:
- From an objective standard, the artwork is terrible, and Buckley certainly has to know this. He mainly simply copies and pastes his work, from the looks of it, and the facial features of EVERY character are exactly the same. This reeks of laziness and simply not caring. Now, it should be said that bad art doesn't necessarily make for a bad comic. Achewood is one of my favorite comics, and it hardly has great art. The thing is, Achewood makes up for it in the writing, which CAD fails to do, as addressed in the next point.
- Again from an objective standard, his writing is terrible. As has been stated before, he starts with the punchline of the strip and proceeds to run it into the ground, whereas the best way would be to lead into the punchline. When it comes to writing serious moments, he tends to fail since there's nothing likeable or commendable or interesting about his characters. That being the case, it's hard to care about anything they say or do, or anything that happens to them. The fact that he avoids anything that could be used to create development doesn't help. If he had let Ethan and Lilah have the baby, he could have used the moment to create character development. By choosing not too, he was able to bypass character development, so the status quo is maintained and NOTHING will ever change about the strip. Both Ethan and Lilah will probably soon forget about the entire event.
Those are my two complaints.
I can understand being surprised at the actual announcement. The miscarriage shouldn't have been a surprise, since it was fairly obvious from the beginning that he would cause a miscarriage in order to create drama.Kadathwack said:
after reading numerous reviews on tim buckley i have decided to stop defending that bastard. obviously he is self absorbed and cannot take criticism and i recend all previous arguments made to defend him.
Please, dear sweet lord don't bring that up...It...So bad...So very bad...Eyes...Brain...All hurt...It makes the miscarriage story look like Tolkien. Well, maybe not THAT much of a gap, but we're talking at least Eoin Colfer levels of difference.Lord_Seth said:
The only problem I've got with Order of the Stick is the direction he's taking. It's getting a tad too wordy/drawn out. Granted, I realize it's meant to be a bit more like a book and I still enjoy it, I just wish he would step up the speed a little.
Hey Existentialist, didn't a few people actually call that the child was going to die in some way? I believe one was the dude from "Me, you, and your Mary-Sue" I don't quite remember if that's who it was, but I do remember a lot of discussion on it.
On a personal note, I sometimes enjoy relating people who enjoy CAD to people who enjoy Reginald Hudlin's "Black Panther."...Well, at least the latter has pretty pictures working for it.
Every criticism that can be leveled against CAD, can just as easily apply to virtually every webcomic ever made. Indeed, it's equally applicable to modern comedy in general.
Which is really why i miss George Carlin already. ;_;
Which is really why i miss George Carlin already. ;_;
Easily understandable. I personally don't have a problem with it, as I still enjoy Burlow's wordiness quite a bit (really, CAD has been one of the few times were wordiness has really destroyed the experience for me), but I can see the concern. I've enjoyed a lot of the focus on the other characters, but the focus on Haley, Belkar, and Celia has tended to drag for me, though I enjoyed the moment with the Oracle quite a bit.Tempdude0 said:
I believe the guy from "Me, You, And Mary-Sue" was one of them, and I'm fairly certain Scott Kurtz of "PvP" was another. A shitload of 4chan members predicted it as well, but you kind of have to take everything they say with a grain of salt, since 4chan will *****/speculate about everything. Of course, I'm far from innocent from this myself....Tempdude0 said:
Them some mighty fine rose-tinted glasses you're looking through.KrabbiPatty said:
awesome review, as a regular reader of CAD and other web comics I have to say this review is ridiculously spot on. I myself am also fed up with the miscarriage episodes of CAD. I know it could be a hard thing to deal with but dealing with it on a public forum that is aimed towards the gaming community is not the right outlet to let your feelings known, unless of course those feelings are about video games.
I guess you haven't picked up a newspaper recently.KrabbiPatty said:
You guys talk about hackneyed comic writing as though that's the EXCEPTION. Drooling on about "Oh, any idiot can publish on the internet" would be compelling if it weren't for the general lack of content among the so-called "legitimate, published comic artists." Scott Kurtz is a hack and deserves to have been rejected repeatedly by newspapers, but the truth is that his lack of talent is still of a higher quality than every Marmaduke comic ever drawn.
On another note entirely, I'm saddened that no one has plugged Something Positive.
The problem is that those "artists" don't really count as such. They intentionally aim for bland and safe. Just like I said about Jim Davis, it's a different method of going about things and I'd actually respect Buckley more if that was his intent.Arbitrary13 said:
As for "Something Positive" It's more of a niche thing. I enjoy it, but most of the humor relies on the reader having a dead, blackened heart. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it limits the amount of people who can enjoy it.
To KrabiPatty, sure they can. How about this, you make a well thought out and convincing argument to support your statement. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm not kidding around, I really want you to give it a shot.
So, shit or get off the pot, as it were.
Also, bringing up Carlin in this thread only further distances Buckley from others with comedic abilities.
The problem is he's not dealing with anything that happened to him in reality. He wrote himself into a corner when he created the baby storyline. He is incapable of actually developing his characters in any meaningful way so as he has admitted he planned to dump the baby at some point along the way so he could continue not doing any character development. He only knows how to write self absorbed prick, it's all he knows (its what he is).Joe Lobo said:
All gaming related web comics are terrible, even the popular Penny Arcade comics are shit. I didn't realize so many people read that crap, you're rotting your brain.
Go read something original like Cyanide and Happiness.
Go read something original like Cyanide and Happiness.