Zero Punctuation: Webcomics

[Leon K. Fox]

Most of these comics are funny, do you have a sense of humour?

 

[Epic Wizard]

I don't feel like quoteing posts at this point because I will pick them apart later when I have time.

Mr Wall-of-text (otherwise known as tempdude0) I wish you would supply better quality walls of text. You obviously have never played D&D or at least not in the last 20 years. Also go read through the Dominic Deegan archives so you can get your senseless ranting correct. Also I really do wonder at your definition of Deus Ex Machina since it really is HIS world and so as long as it's consistent it isn't Deus Ex Machina.

Also I don't see you doing much leg work to defend your points and Uncyclopedia counts for less than Wikipedia since at least Wiki has some form of quality control.

Before I get to why I'm asking this I would like an answer: What, if any, Web Comics do you consider good and what do you consider good writing in one?

Also CAD isn't a copy paste webcomic it is hand drawn (on a tablet but still hand drawn).

 

[Tempdude0]

Yes, I've never played D&D, despite having just created a new character for a 3.5 campaign. Though I'm curious, why do you think I've never played. Any reason, or are you just going for the sad, sad, ad hominem attacks?

In what way is my "Senseless ranting" incorrect? Well, come on now, step up to the plate.

Oh, and I don't believe YOU understand deus ex machina. Look it up. It refers to the idea of...You know what, here's the definition.

"a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty"

I see nowhere in there that it's THEIR WORLD so it makes it DEEP AND TOTALLY NOT CONTRIVED!!1!

Quality control on wiki...riiiight. Next you'll be telling me pigs fly.

I don't need to justify what I find "good" or "good writing" for my points to be valid.

...No, it's not copy/paste at all. He just has a bar where he keeps different body parts/expressions. It's more of a key, so it's totally not copy and paste, right guys? I mean, even though his youtube videos show him blatantly using this key, it's really not him copy and pasting, it's us not seeing him magically draw the pictures.

Christ you're stupid. You seem to be barking up the fallacy tree today. It's like some sort of divine power smote you with the inability to make anything more than a flimsy argument. At least attempt to make a rebuttal of some kind, not just "Nuh-Uh, 'cause I said so!" I at least took the time to reference specific events, try to do the same. Since you know and love these things so much, it should be MUCH easier for you to point out EXACTLY WHERE I'M WRONG...You know, assuming you can actually manage that.

 

[Obeliskos]

I really have to wonder if people who don't like CAD will shut up about it and let the fans enjoy it. People who say "CAD is ghei lololol B^UCKLEY lololo clever if u liek CAD ur a douche" (and yes, people do say exactly that) are complete retards who don't understand opinions. People that don't like CAD but respect my opinion that it's good and don't insult me because I like it, I generally respect. However, the fact that Yahtzee would make a video just to target poor CAD seems low and he didn't make very good points. Hell, I can argue with everything he said if I wanted. But I really don't want to. I respect his work enough to leave it alone and not start an internets war. After all, I like both CAD and Yahtzee, so I'm trying to be on both sides here, but it's pretty hard when one of your favorite video game critics bashes your favorite comic.

 

[Tempdude0]

"Hell, I can argue with everything he said if I wanted. But I really don't want to..."

Lazy, lazy, lazy. Don't make a statement like that. It's pointless and generally makes whomever used it look like an ass, and a stupid one at that.

Also, way to miss the point there chief. The past few pages have been devoted to, aside from the random tard or two, explaining why the comic is bad. Those of us saying that aren't criticizing your love of the comic, we're saying step back and take a look at it for what it is. Just like Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Metal Gear Solid, no one cares if you like it. The problem that arises is that you think your opinion of it somehow gauges it's quality.

It doesn't.

 

[Epic Wizard]

Yes, I've never played D&D, despite having just created a new character for a 3.5 campaign. Though I'm curious, why do you think I've never played. Any reason, or are you just going for the sad, sad, ad hominem attacks?

I say you have never played specifically for your statement here:

... Oh, and in D&D, not all demons are evil. There are neutral ones, and even a good one here and there. Way to shoot yourself in the foot.

Even in the Eberron Campaign Setting which takes away the fixed alignment for some of the most classically evil creatures (dragons for one) Demons are uniformly evil, underhanded, and conniving bastards. That was the specific example that made me think you had never played and I only qualified it with 'in the last 20 years' because I know next to nothing about first edition and very little about second. Oh and FYI D&D can be related to any fantasy setting anywhere.

In what way is my "Senseless ranting" incorrect? Well, come on now, step up to the plate.

You keep saying how bad his comic is but so far you have either told me to go look up why or redirected me to some of the most questionable sources on the internet which merely attacked the character of Tim Buckley (and yes I know you sent me there in relation to the forum incident and not chasing grammar tips). You have yet to give any concrete proof of 'how bad this stuff is' or justify that in any way.

Oh and if you think you are providing a public service by informing the public that CAD is lousy then let me ring up reality and see if they forgot your wake up call this lifetime. No one likes to be told that something they like and enjoy is lousy and they generally enjoy it because they think it is good in some way (or think it is good because they enjoy it). So please give your public service a rest and then shoot it.

Oh, and I don't believe YOU understand deus ex machina. Look it up. It refers to the idea of...You know what, here's the definition.

"a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty"

Soooo ... just because this didn't conform to your expectations it's shit? Well well well, I need to call up a few writers and go cuss them out then. Which is a shame because I rather enjoyed their work.

Also here is another wording of the definition which is a little less negative:

a Greek term meaning "god from a machine." In Greek theater, an actor playing a god was often lowered onto the stage to settle worldly affairs. The term is now used to describe any device an author introduces late in a play to resolve plot difficulties.[link]http://www.ket.org/Trips/horsecave/vocab_foreign.htm[/link]

I see nowhere in there that it's THEIR WORLD so it makes it DEEP AND TOTALLY NOT CONTRIVED!!1!

Only if it's a dramatic inconsistency. If he wants to make Necromancy not a black and white discipline then that's fine. The closest he has come to Deus Ex Machina was the story arch with the Elematica (not sure if I spelled that right) where Dominic was saves through what was a REAL contrived and overly convenient solution.

Quality control on wiki...riiiight. Next you'll be telling me pigs fly.

If they start flying then please let me know since I love bacon. Oh, and if you would like I did a report on Wiki and could dig up that study comparing Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia.

I don't need to justify what I find "good" or "good writing" for my points to be valid.

If you are saying that the writing is crap then you DO in fact need to justify that point in some way shape or form of qualify it with something that distinguishes it as your opinion.

...No, it's not copy/paste at all. He just has a bar where he keeps different body parts/expressions. It's more of a key, so it's totally not copy and paste, right guys? I mean, even though his youtube videos show him blatantly using this key, it's really not him copy and pasting, it's us not seeing him magically draw the pictures.

First of all he still drew the bits in the first place. Second I really wonder if others don't do the same thing. I mean it's a rather efficient way to do things when you are making a Web Comic around a career of some sort. Plus, having a selection of eyeballs doesn't come anywhere NEAR the sprite comics where EVERYTHING is literally copy/paste. (don't get me wrong I love some of those comics too)

Christ you're stupid.

Actually I feel I'm rather intelligent and you probably are too. So far I've just held my temper better.

... You seem to be barking up the fallacy tree today. It's like some sort of divine power smote you with the inability to make anything more than a flimsy argument. At least attempt to make a rebuttal of some kind, not just "Nuh-Uh, 'cause I said so!" I at least took the time to reference specific events, try to do the same. Since you know and love these things so much, it should be MUCH easier for you to point out EXACTLY WHERE I'M WRONG...You know, assuming you can actually manage that.

I would love to tell you where you're wrong but so far you won't even tell me what you think is right. I mean I could always give you a page from CAD or Dominic Deegan and a picture of feces but I doubt that would help anyways. As for the length of my last post I was headed off to the movies with family in about ten minutes and didn't have time for a fifteen or twenty minute post.

You are entitled to your opinion but you don't need to try and force it on the rest of us.

Now unless you are going to get specific enough for us to have anything more than a shouting match I suggest we let this thread die.

 

[Tempdude0]

Whoops, thinking of extra planar beings. That'd be my bad. I was under the impression that the things I was thinking of were demons...They weren't. On that point I back down...Though now I have to go scour the damn fiend folio to see if anything in there isn't evil.

I stated flat out why both Buckley and Terracino are bad writers/artists. Did you even see the giant wall of text going into the lack of dimension in their characters? Also, BAAAAAAAWWWW....Listen junior, people are stupid. They think that because they enjoy something or they think a certain way about something that it instantly means that they're right because "It's opinion, maaaaaaan.". This irks me. Also, I don't care if people like what I'm saying. I doubt people like being told they wasted money, or are in an abusive relationship, or are bad at something. Reality bites, suck it up and deal with it.

Uh, Derp derp derp...That's what you've got going there. I never said it had to conform to my expectations. I said it had to follow the standards of writing. Also, don't get into the entomology of a word with me, I know it's origins. If you looked a little harder, it meant the same back then as it did now. An "act of god" resolving all conflict. It was bad writing then and it's bad writing now, you asshat. If you're going to play at being a literary fag, at least do it well.

The elemecca, the infernomancer returning, the battle for Barthis, the chosen. All were won through sheer deus ex machina. I never said the necromancy was deus ex machina, and the term doesn't even apply. God, you're a special kind of lackwit aren't you. You attempt to "correct" me when it comes to the usage of the word and not one paragraph later you use it wrong. How can you even be this stupid?

Pull it up then. Wikipedia is only good for the sources mentioned in the articles. The articles themselves are nice but are so open to change that you may catch them on the day someone wants to be an ass, or the article may not have been revised recently. These are typical issues with it that render it somewhat useless as a serious source of information.

I'm saying it's crap based on the rules of WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN WRITING! Deus ex machina is never good in a serious story, inconsistencies aren't good unless you use them as the basis for a future story and incorporate them intentionally (Like Emoboy Prime punching reality, but well done and not a retcon), static characters aren't good if you're attempting to inject human emotion and character into them. Also, just because I loves me some cheap shots, on the art side, snouts.

Oh, so it's not bad because others do it? Yeah, it's still lazy. It's still copy/paste. Regardless of drawing them the first time, he didn't draw them the next two hundred times. That's slipshod at best. Also, if you want a good example of art/writing, fine, Dr. McNinja. There, it's consistently well written and the art is dynamic. Also, he has more than a pallet of eyes. He has full "expressions" B^U, arms, torsos, legs, heads, the whole shebang.

My temper has nothing to do with it, and my insults aren't related to my temper. They're related directly to the amount of respect I have for you. Right now, you're somewhere in the realm of ****....and no, you're not intelligent. You consistently misuse terms, are unable to form a cohesive argument, and are generally just sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALA YOU'RE NOT RIGHT CAUSE I SAID SO LALALALALA"

I've told you the issues with both comics. Go back two or three posts and check out the giant wall of text on what's wrong with the comics. I broke down why each character was flat as paper and why the setting was ludicrous. As for my opinion, it's not opinion in this case. They're both bad writers. I don't care if you like them, but recognize them for what they are. I happen to like Eragon and Eldest, but I recognize them as fantasy star wars. Why can't you get it through your thick skull that your enjoyment of something is in no way related to it's quality?

 

[Epic Wizard]

I got everything I got wrong the same way you got Demons wrong. I read what you write wrong or you make a grammatical mistake which changes the meaning of a sentence in my eyes. It's a simple mistake.

I do wonder though where you thought that this was in any way comparable to an abusive relationship or someone who is bad at (lets pick a fairly infallible example here) walking through a door. Those are things with concrete definitions and at least in the case of an abusive relationship are serious issues. So far I haven't heard of anyone dieing in connection with bad writing.

I will fully admit that I am a lousy judge of poor writing since I didn't see Star Wars 1-3 as particularly bad writing without having it spelled out for me (with examples) which is the problem I have with your argument. I (in my opinion) refuted your initial round of arguments and if there isn't anything past this then I don't see a reason to do anything other than agree to disagree.

 

[Tempdude0]

Whoa, time out. I don't make grammatical mistakes. I'm far too anal retentive for those to slip through. Don't blame your poor reading skills on me or make excuses. The line you're looking for is "I occasionally misunderstand what you're writing due to not reading it thoroughly/too quickly and not checking back while writing my rebuttals." See, it's easy.

"I do wonder though where you thought that this was in any way comparable to an abusive relationship or someone who is bad at (lets pick a fairly infallible example here) walking through a door. Those are things with concrete definitions and at least in the case of an abusive relationship are serious issues. So far I haven't heard of anyone dieing in connection with bad writing."

Okay, what are you even getting at here? This paragraph has no flow at all. Work on that and get back to me...Wait, I just got it. Oye, the idea was that people don't like to hear things that conflict with what they believe, especially when it conflicts in a way they view as negative. As for the definitions aspect, I'm guessing that refers to my spiel over Deus Ex Machina, in which case you're usage of it is still wrong across the board. One of us here consistently checks the dictionary when unsure of word usage, and it ain't you. Incidentally, writing also has strict definitions for what is right and wrong. Just throwing that out there.

As for "Refuting" my earlier points, I brought more up you never addressed. The Deus Ex Machina for example. I pointed out that most, if not all story lines involve the use of it. I pointed out that there were major inconsistencies, but lets get more specific there. Deegan's wildly fluctuating power level, Luna bouncing around from inept to master, among other things. Further, I fail to see where you even responded to what I had written, such as Terracinos use of stark black and white in relation to acts/motivations that seem to change for no reason other than the writer feels like it's totally fine now. You also skipped over the things I put up in my last post as well. What, are we now just ignoring things we don't feel like answering because it would be hard? Well, I can't say WE, what with me having a fairly smooth time with responding to all your points. I guess it'd just be YOU then.

Also, going back to your own post, a few things confused me. Why do I need to qualify what I see as good? If I see a shit sandwich, I don't need to say I enjoy ham on rye bread to say it's a shit sandwich. As such, I see no reason why it's needed here, though I humored you and tossed up an example. You also mention that D&D can be related to any fantasy setting. This only confuses me in that I referenced Tolkien earlier and the way in which all fantasy for the past thirty years or so has been primarily influenced by his writing, after which you decide to say that line about D&D, a game BASED ON HIS WRITING. It just seems odd.

All in all, you seemed to have skipped over the majority of what I've written and wanked off into the middle of nowhere...and you needed to have the issues with Star Wars 1-3 pointed out to you? What the, just how did you miss them?

 

[whiskeywolf]

BRILLIANT! *knocks back a Guinness*

 

[Geamo]

Nice review.
Agreed on most counts, particularly the bit copying Penny Arcade.

 

[xarkin]

what is the name of the first song?

thanks

 

[Obeliskos]

what is the name of the first song?

thanks

It says the music in the credits.

 

[demonwaffle]

rofl!

 

[jejeueeeee]

A self-important, bearded transcript:
The thought occurs that for all my banging at the "games are art" drum, art is only as good as the culture that surrounds it. A game could give the most extraordinarily emotional experience in the entirety of human culture, and bring tears to the eyes of a jaded war veteran with no eyes, but it's all for naught if it's not surrounded by self-important bearded tossers who read too much into things for a living, and since I'm one of gaming culture's alpha self-important bearded tossers, I thought I'd discuss the trend of internet gaming humour. And by that I mean the trend of gaming webcomics. And by "trend", I mean "plague".

So you've looked at Penny Arcade, seen the massive amounts of money, prestige, and money those guys get for nine panels a week, and decided that you want in on that. Many gaming webcomic artists have thought the exact same thing - in fact, let's not beat around the bush, all gaming webcomic artists (except Penny Arcade, obviously). The first thing to do is to be, or move in with, someone who can draw, forcefully if necessary. If you don't know anyone who can draw, and you yourself draw like a flipper-handed freak child who just discovered MS Paint, don't fret, just write excessive amounts of dialogue, and hide the hideous art with huge speech bubbles. If you don't know how to draw or write, are a functionally retarded quadruple amputee, and can only communicate by banging your head against a Wacom tablet, that's still no reason to quit; you can wipe your ass with a page of Mega Man sprites, and there'll still be someone on Comic Genesis who'll tell you that it's brilliant.

The next thing you need to do is create your main character, and since it's important to write what you know, the main character will obviously be you, but while you are a repressed, socially retarded dullard who no one would ever honestly admit to liking, your author insertion character is a fantasy, so they will be a charismatic eccentric who is unconditionally loved by everyone, even while he's setting their dog on fire. The secondary character is the straight man, whose job it is to play comic foil to the other character's bullshit, and inexplicably tolerate his behaviour, when any sane person would be checking the Rooms To Rent pages with one hand, and slamming the idiot's face in a drawer with the other.

The third character is The Girl. You know, girls? Those mysterious creatures you see on the bus, who have their own bathrooms, and spray stingy liquid in your face. If you don't know much about girls, because your conversations with them don't last for more than a few minutes before the police are called, just use your Mum as a frame of reference, characterizing the female as a disapproving, eye-rolling nanny who tolerantly wipes up the whoopsies of the idiot man-children and chastises them with the occasional spanking. And since your ego should be swelling nicely by this point, she should also become the main character's girlfriend somehow, because she finds something adorable about the way he gets hypnotized by her breasts.

Now you have to make your comic funny. And reading most existing webcomics, one could be forgiven for thinking that humour is entirely optional, but believe it or not, there are people who laugh at that stuff, even if it's just the author's mum. Fortunately the advantage of running a gaming webcomic is that gaming humour is incredibly easy. All you have to do is apply video game logic to the real world for comic effect. For example, in say, Gears of War, you have to push the analogue stick to move forward, when in real life, you have to continually put one foot in front of the other. This might not sound like "A" material, but trust me, phrase this right, and there's a fortune to be made in Cafepress shirts. If that doesn't work, go for the edgy crowd, and do a comic implying that Mario does Luigi up the arse. And if that doesn't work, just go on about the Cake being A Lie.

So, now your comic is squatting on the internet like a sewage plant on the river Thames, but you're still not popular because you're competing with every other hack with a Playstation and a messiah complex, so how do you stand out against the crowd? Well, you're forgetting the most important ingredient: drama. I'm not talking about dramatic storylines, although that can certainly be part of it. Let's say, for sake of example, that you're sick of making Companion Cube jokes, and suddenly do a serious storyline about your female character having a miscarriage. Obviously, you'd need to have several blood clots in your brain to think this is a good idea; you're established as a wacky humour comic, so this is going to be an awkward tonal shift at best, and hugely disrespectful of the subject matter at worst. Your most hardcore supporters will feebly attempt to go along with you on this, smiling nervously at each other as they would around a mentally unstable friend with a shillelagh, but mean-spirited, emibttered cocks are gonna call you out on it. At this point, there are many ways you can respond. "I don't see you doing anything better," "I can do whatever I want with MY comic," "You're just jealous because I get more readers," and other equally flawed arguments, but above all else, never admit defeat, because the bigger a douche you are, the more traffic you get, as spectators line up to see you jump around the monkey cage, screaming and flinging your poo.

Drama is the mortar that holds the webcomic community together, and there are so many wonderful ways to create it. Make absolutely no effort to improve your horrible drawing style, act like a prick at a convention, respond to constructive criticism with hostility, and just generally behave like the kind of monstrous egotist that blossom like mushrooms in the darkened trough of shit that is the internet. And if anyone really pisses you off, depict them in your comic as a ridiculous strawman and mock them with infuriating self-righteousness. You know, kind of like exactly what I'm doing now. So your gaming webcomic package is compete. All that's left to do is gather it all together, and throw it in a fucking bin, because you're a talentless cultural pollutant who deserves to suffocate to death on a bag of porridge.

lolwut

 

[malkaviansniper]

another CAD reference hahaha.

 

[panda_communist]

the one time i read penny arcade i went gee this sucks why do people say its good

 

[gasto]

Shut the fuck up. You all Þ !

 

[MB202]

Noticed a lot of similarities between what Yahtzee said and Ctrl + Alt + Del. Then later on I read that he hated CAD, so there you go, I suppose.

 

[Epic Wizard]

Whoa, time out. I don't make grammatical mistakes. I'm far too anal retentive for those to slip through. Don't blame your poor reading skills on me or make excuses. The line you're looking for is "I occasionally misunderstand what you're writing due to not reading it thoroughly/too quickly and not checking back while writing my rebuttals." See, it's easy.

"I do wonder though where you thought that this was in any way comparable to an abusive relationship or someone who is bad at (lets pick a fairly infallible example here) walking through a door. Those are things with concrete definitions and at least in the case of an abusive relationship are serious issues. So far I haven't heard of anyone dieing in connection with bad writing."

Okay, what are you even getting at here? This paragraph has no flow at all. Work on that and get back to me...Wait, I just got it. Oye, the idea was that people don't like to hear things that conflict with what they believe, especially when it conflicts in a way they view as negative. As for the definitions aspect, I'm guessing that refers to my spiel over Deus Ex Machina, in which case you're usage of it is still wrong across the board. One of us here consistently checks the dictionary when unsure of word usage, and it ain't you. Incidentally, writing also has strict definitions for what is right and wrong. Just throwing that out there.

As for "Refuting" my earlier points, I brought more up you never addressed. The Deus Ex Machina for example. I pointed out that most, if not all story lines involve the use of it. I pointed out that there were major inconsistencies, but lets get more specific there. Deegan's wildly fluctuating power level, Luna bouncing around from inept to master, among other things. Further, I fail to see where you even responded to what I had written, such as Terracinos use of stark black and white in relation to acts/motivations that seem to change for no reason other than the writer feels like it's totally fine now. You also skipped over the things I put up in my last post as well. What, are we now just ignoring things we don't feel like answering because it would be hard? Well, I can't say WE, what with me having a fairly smooth time with responding to all your points. I guess it'd just be YOU then.

Also, going back to your own post, a few things confused me. Why do I need to qualify what I see as good? If I see a shit sandwich, I don't need to say I enjoy ham on rye bread to say it's a shit sandwich. As such, I see no reason why it's needed here, though I humored you and tossed up an example. You also mention that D&D can be related to any fantasy setting. This only confuses me in that I referenced Tolkien earlier and the way in which all fantasy for the past thirty years or so has been primarily influenced by his writing, after which you decide to say that line about D&D, a game BASED ON HIS WRITING. It just seems odd.

All in all, you seemed to have skipped over the majority of what I've written and wanked off into the middle of nowhere...and you needed to have the issues with Star Wars 1-3 pointed out to you? What the, just how did you miss them?

First: There is such a thing as a quote tag. Learn to use it.

Second: You completely missed my point. In fact you basically headed in the COMPLETE opposite direction from what I was getting at. If I really need to be as blunt as a bowling ball then fine here it is. There is no need for you to act like you are saving the world from something that poses no threat to it. So stop treating bad writing like it's the end of the world and go find something serious to get worked up over (and before you say that I've gotten worked up over this I outlined quite a few posts ago what my writing looks like when I'm worked up. This is simply mildly irate coupled with a major case of 'I can't believe I wasted so much text on such an idiot'

Third: Luna and Dominic do not have wildly inconsistent power levels.

Fourth: While first and possibly even second edition D&D were heavily influenced by the work of J.R.R. Tolkien the more recent editions can find only traces of his influence to the point of being insubstantial.

Now for the last time. Lets just drop in and could you please find something more important and world threatening to be all high and mighty about. Like global warming.