Hey, so, I started this blog off on a high note. I may dislike Shortpacked!
but I don't loathe it, and this blog is going to spiral into the black
depths of loathing before you even know it. Because from here on in, I
am going to start reviewing and criticising the comics I hate the most.
The comics that really, really, really have a lot wrong with them. So, we'll begin with one of the worst ones out there: Dominic Deegan.
Dominic Deegan is a webcomic so bad you'd think it was hosted on an ancient Indian burial ground. It's so unwaveringly terrible it might as well be a universal constant. It's so bad that it spoils milk. It's so bad that your computer will physically smell when you load the page, an aroma of brimstone, decaying meat and burning feces that will linger for days afterward. It is so bad that none of what I have just said does justice to how bad it is.
Let's do a blow-by-blow analysis of comic number one, shall we? First, let's take into consideration the art. The esteemed originator of this... particular piece is called Michael Terracciano, but goes by the cuddly-wuddly name of "Mookie" to all his fans. Aww. As we can see here, it sure has some humble beginnings! It looks like it was scratched out over ten minutes by some 14-year-old who's just watched Dragonball Z and thought it was the raddest show ever. The face is pretty flexible, adhering to a vague pentagonal shape, the specifics of which are hidden under some spikey hair. Hair you will get to know better than any other aspect of this webcomic, because 99% of the characters have some variation of it.
Yessir, that's animu style. It is not based off manga, no it is not. It is based off anime. Specifically, very cheap anime. Read on and you'll see what I mean. Rather than drawing a nose and chin, Deegan characters have a snout. Now, fair's fair, even cheap anime isn't quite as bad as that, but that's roughly how it goes. Cheap anime has its side views as a pointy nose running down into a chin, with the mouth stuck somewhere in the cheek. This is so the mouth can flap about all it wants without having to animate anything else. Like I said, cheap. But there is absolutely no reason to do this in a comic, where you do not have to draw things so the inbetweeners can animate more easily. Still, Deegan does it. Why? Because Terracciano is pretty much one of the worst webcomic artists around. In fact, just calling him an artist is pretty insulting. Especially since he hasn't improved since he started.
Yes, now click "last" and scoot on to today's comic. Doesn't matter when you're reading this, because Terracciano's art has gone through no significant changes since day one, apart from being a little less sketchy and the snouts becoming a little more snoutish. Yes, more snoutish. The man has no fucking concept of what a human being looks in profile, and apparently has no compulsion to better himself and try to render his characters in a manner that doesn't make the webcomic look like The Adventures of Porky Trotter, Pig-Person. Still, it's been five years since he started his terrible comic. Five years of drawing, and nothing's any better than when he started. That's so bad you'd think it'd take effort to stay that bad. Yeah, Terracciano's plenty happy to stagnate himself and keep on excreting the same kind of blasé crap that his braindead fans eat up.
Let's get on with my speciality: the story. You see, Deegan is not a gag-a-day strip. That much is painfully obvious when you read the attempts at humour, which are either bad puns or jokes that you might find in a Christmas cracker. There are also some things which could be punchlines, but the entirity of the "joke" is that one of the characters is using words that begin with the same letter. "Carbon-copy characters make awful alliteration in lieu of anything whatsoever that's even slightly funny!"
Okay, I cheated, but it was for accuracy's sake. Mr. Terracciano is one of those people who are just incapable of cracking a good joke, either quickly or through a risible situation. He simply can't do punchlines. Which is pretty unsurprising as you stumble your way through the archives of this webcomic, because you find out he can't do anything whatsoever when it comes to writing. He is not a bad writer, since he is not even a writer. He is to writing what a child molester is to sex. He is trying his hardest to do it, but he is just not doing it the way it should be done and that makes everyone else either very uncomfortable or very angry.
Why, yes, I did just basically say he was a literary paedophile. A nonce of the written word. A walking Amber Alert just waiting to go off. The man deeply offends me by his very existence. His writing, and my God it pains me to call it that, is of such a sub-par standard that it is off the bottom of the chart. I have known, literally, 12-year-olds with a better grasp of writing than him. And he's, I don't know, mid-twenties or something pathetic like that. It's embarrassing to think that he's not improved one jot since he was a prepubescent sprog, and outrageous to think that he actually gets people to pay him for this shit.
Yes, just like paedophiles have their little enclaves where they persuade each other that they're not actually creepy little shits, Deegan has its own wretched hive of scum and villainy. Knowing them, they'll probably take that description as a compliment and try and be all "ironic" about it without actually having the faintest notion of what irony actually is. This is because anyone who likes Dominic Deegan is a fucking moron.
The art is bad, the writing is bad, yet they cling to it like stink on shit. Why? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. Ask any of those vacant-eyed mongoloids and they'll say it's because Deegan is good, which is an obvious lie, so we can discount that. Sufficed to say, it's probably like one of those stamp collection conventions where you see a bunch of hopeless dorks engaging in a boring activity you cannot fathom. Except for the fact that stamp collection is a better way to spend your time than reading Dominic Deegan. Hell, jamming pins under your fingernails is probably a better way to spend your time.
So, you are undoubtedly asking, what makes the writing bad? Let's begin with our humble protagonist, Mr. Dominic Deegan. He is a simple man - not in deed, not in thought, but in nature. He is as flat and shallow as the paper he is drawn on. He is a self-insertion character, a Mary-Sue, designed for some pretty tame wish-fulfilment on Terracciano's behalf. Indeed, he is a Mookie-Sue. Terracciano actually draws himself pretty much the same as Dominic, but without the glasses and with longer hair.
Okay, I'm nit-picking here, all webcomic creators everywhere do this. It's creepy, quit it.
Deegan starts out living, rather oddly, in a village full of idiots. I'm not kidding, try reading it if you feel you can stomach it. Everyone is blessed with room temperature IQs, not to mention they're all racists. Hell, they're just generic bigots, really. Call me picky, but when I look for a place to live the first thing I'd like to be aware of is if I'm moving in next door to the fucking Klan. But it's okay, Dominic has nothing to fear - everyone who does not share his (ie, Terracciano's) opinion is a straw man waiting to be huffed and puffed away with some little speech that's supposed to be scathing, perhaps, but just comes across as forced.
Forget cleanliness, Deegan is next to godliness. He's a saint. He has no flaws, besides the temporary ones he adopts so Terracciano can write some character conflict that reads like a stroppy teenager arguing that he really, really wants to get his nose pierced. But that's always resolved quickly, pretty much always with Dominic coming out on top and smelling of roses. He's the good guy, and you know it because he is a Good Guy. He's selfless and caring and brave and noble and loving and honest and true, like fifteen Care Bears sandwiched into one snout-faced body. Quite predictably, his bad guys are the same.
Remember Captain Planet? Remember how the villains would cackle with glee at pollution just for pollution's sake? Even if it didn't accomplish anything besides fouling up the planet? Deegan's bad guys are on the same level, if not lower. Forget matching up to the kind of rogue's gallery sported by Batman, these guys are lucky if they're even half of what Skeletor is.
Dominic has no depth, his bad guys have less depth. While Dominic kinda alternates his motivation between "I must save the world" and "I must protect my friends" in his sappy, flat way, his opponents have only one motivation: "because I'm EEEEVIL! Muahaha!"
You know, I really wish I was lying right now, but this is the sad truth. Dominic Deegan's villains do villainous things because they are villains. Whatever backstory they have, if any, they are evil in it. Sometime it's just a little seed of evil, sometimes they crawled out of a womb covered in tar and hissing through pointed teeth as their eyes search for other, more wholesome babies to kill and devour. But there is no motivation in them beyond that they are evil.
There is one exception to this rule, and he did things because he wanted to save the world. Only, his way of saving the world was not Dominic's way of saving the world and thus it was evil and thus he was evil and so Dominic had to go Super-Magic-Saiyan and power up to defeat him. That's not hyperbole, he really did that.
Following any villain's chain of logic, it all boils down to "because they're EVIL!" which is pretty solid reasoning for an eight-year-old watching a guy with a skull for a face try to rule the world by stealing the powers of some guy with a phallic symbol and a bowlcut, but an utterly pathetic thing for a grown man to hang on to. If there weren't greater flaws in his writing, I would chastise Mookie for it. But as it stands I'd prefer to compare him to a paedophile again, or perhaps tell him to stop fucking writing since he's so very, very bad at it.
The supporting characters aren't much better. Luna, the love of Dominic's perfect life and apparently equal in genius to him, suffers from depression. Being blissfully unaware what depression actually is, Terracciano has her drink and try to kill herself. The source of her woes is two oversized teeth that stick out like little tusks. Despite this tiny, incidental physical blemish, she is apparently totally hot like woah. The thing is, she has no reason to still have those teeth.
She said she didn't go see an "Alterist" - a wizardly plastic surgeon, ho ho, very clever - because they are creepy. That is literally what she said. Never mind she is contemplating killing herself, she doesn't want to be creeped out for a few minutes. Nor does she just file them down, no. She doesn't even give an explanation for that. When Dominic loses some teeth in the middle of SAVING THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD HELL YEAH he has some people make him some false ones. Which look so much like real teeth you can't tell the difference. What was stopping Luna - totally prepared to off herself - from knocking out two teeth and getting two utterly perfect replacements? Nothing. What was even stopping her from knocking them out and getting any other kind of replacement? Nothing. Somehow she has pride in her disfigurement, but also hates it enough to kill herself over it. Wow, Terracciano, that doesn't smack of forcing the issue at all.
Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire (even though I don't think he's ever been "hired" in the entire Goddamn comic) is Mookie's ickle soapbox to decry what he views as the evils of the world. Somehow he thinks that, despite his terrible art and terrible writing, he's more than qualified to change the world and speak out on such evils as racism and bigotry and rape. Yes, rape. Specifically: orc rape.
Being a twentysomething male with barely any experience in relationships, Terracciano decided that he knew all there was to know about rape. Especially raping a child. Now, all paedophile jokes aside, this is a heavy assumption to make. Established writers, who are actually competent at writing, do not leap into rape storylines headfirst. Even the ones who write really terrible rape storylines don't just knock it off on a whim. Terracciano is different, though. He will not hear a word of criticism against his comic, so much so that he shuts down his forums and deletes e-mails that aren't mindless adoration. Which is probably why he took the Deegan Express full steam ahead to Rapetown Station.
Here's how the story goes: Melna is an orc, a Dominic Deegan race grabbed wholesale from World of Warcraft. They are basically the Horde side all put together: a proud warrior race who borrow heavily from American Indians. They are peaceful vegetarians, because that is such a unique and original viewpoint to reverse the stereotype that way! Aha! Ahaha! Moving on...
Melna is an orc, and her father is some bigshot jerk. He ends up getting murdered in front of Melna's eyes. His wife, Melna's mother, also dies in front of her eyes. Then someone who she thought was her friend takes her, as she cries and screams, and rapes her. In order to save her life.
In Dominic Deegan, there is an afterlife. It is cold, hard fact. Everyone knows it. It's a place you can travel to without having to die, even. You've got Dominic and other wizardly types popping in every other storyline. In order to get into heaven, the "good people" part, you just have to be vaguely good-ish. Like I said earlier, people here are either wholly good or wholly evil, so anyone who doesn't drown kittens for a living is going to heaven. Which means that Melna's parents went there after they got stabbed and shot with arrows in front of their 14-year-old daughter.
After this went down, there were two options: Melna gets executed, for some reason, or someone takes her as his "wife" which means rape rape rape. So-called friend does the second option, which apparently makes him a selfless hero for saving her life and stopping her from living in eternal bliss with her parents.
Yes, go read it if you're not believing me. Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire justifies the rape of a little girl. Justifies, excuses and trivialises a rape of a little girl. Makes it into so much heartstring-tugging ratings fuel to appease the fans. "Oh gee golly gosh," they say, "this is so deep."
All of the above takes place during a storyline where they have a rock concert. Yes, a rock concert. With magical electrical guitars. You do not know the meaning of the word pathetic when you see these flat, lifeless characters act out a rock concert in a soundless medium. Usually in black and white, too. It's like a 14-year-old girl trying to explain what a rad time she had at her first Fallout Boy concert via DeviantArt. Except then she gets raped.
As an aside, Melna is now in love with the guy who raped her as a child, and has actually referred to him as her "husband" - this actually made me physically sick to my stomach, which was the first time Dominic Deegan ever inspired any kind of emotion in me besides pity.
Dominic Deegan is a bad webcomic. It's so bad I have just spent two thousand words explaining how bad it is and I still have more to say about it - but perhaps another time. In the mean time, do not read Dominic Deegan. Reading it is a chore, much like scouring your eyes with wire wool and bleach, only not as fun. Worse, you may find yourself accidentally enjoying the comic, which should bring about the dull realisation that you have no taste in writing, that you cannot discern pure shit from anything that's not pure shit, that you are a fucking idiot who likes Dominic Deegan and can never show their face in society again.
Just for laughs I'll say, once more, that Terracciano is so bad at writing I'm willing to compare him to a Goddamn child molester. However, he'll never know because this is criticism of his shitty work, and that means he'll never read it. He is content to be in his warm little bubble of ignorance, soaking in a pool of his own filth, blissfully unaware that his writing is some of the worst writing to ever exist in the entire universe.
"Mookie", from the bottom of my heart, die in a fire. Seriously, die. No one will miss you.
Dominic Deegan is a webcomic so bad you'd think it was hosted on an ancient Indian burial ground. It's so unwaveringly terrible it might as well be a universal constant. It's so bad that it spoils milk. It's so bad that your computer will physically smell when you load the page, an aroma of brimstone, decaying meat and burning feces that will linger for days afterward. It is so bad that none of what I have just said does justice to how bad it is.
Let's do a blow-by-blow analysis of comic number one, shall we? First, let's take into consideration the art. The esteemed originator of this... particular piece is called Michael Terracciano, but goes by the cuddly-wuddly name of "Mookie" to all his fans. Aww. As we can see here, it sure has some humble beginnings! It looks like it was scratched out over ten minutes by some 14-year-old who's just watched Dragonball Z and thought it was the raddest show ever. The face is pretty flexible, adhering to a vague pentagonal shape, the specifics of which are hidden under some spikey hair. Hair you will get to know better than any other aspect of this webcomic, because 99% of the characters have some variation of it.
Yessir, that's animu style. It is not based off manga, no it is not. It is based off anime. Specifically, very cheap anime. Read on and you'll see what I mean. Rather than drawing a nose and chin, Deegan characters have a snout. Now, fair's fair, even cheap anime isn't quite as bad as that, but that's roughly how it goes. Cheap anime has its side views as a pointy nose running down into a chin, with the mouth stuck somewhere in the cheek. This is so the mouth can flap about all it wants without having to animate anything else. Like I said, cheap. But there is absolutely no reason to do this in a comic, where you do not have to draw things so the inbetweeners can animate more easily. Still, Deegan does it. Why? Because Terracciano is pretty much one of the worst webcomic artists around. In fact, just calling him an artist is pretty insulting. Especially since he hasn't improved since he started.
Yes, now click "last" and scoot on to today's comic. Doesn't matter when you're reading this, because Terracciano's art has gone through no significant changes since day one, apart from being a little less sketchy and the snouts becoming a little more snoutish. Yes, more snoutish. The man has no fucking concept of what a human being looks in profile, and apparently has no compulsion to better himself and try to render his characters in a manner that doesn't make the webcomic look like The Adventures of Porky Trotter, Pig-Person. Still, it's been five years since he started his terrible comic. Five years of drawing, and nothing's any better than when he started. That's so bad you'd think it'd take effort to stay that bad. Yeah, Terracciano's plenty happy to stagnate himself and keep on excreting the same kind of blasé crap that his braindead fans eat up.
Let's get on with my speciality: the story. You see, Deegan is not a gag-a-day strip. That much is painfully obvious when you read the attempts at humour, which are either bad puns or jokes that you might find in a Christmas cracker. There are also some things which could be punchlines, but the entirity of the "joke" is that one of the characters is using words that begin with the same letter. "Carbon-copy characters make awful alliteration in lieu of anything whatsoever that's even slightly funny!"
Okay, I cheated, but it was for accuracy's sake. Mr. Terracciano is one of those people who are just incapable of cracking a good joke, either quickly or through a risible situation. He simply can't do punchlines. Which is pretty unsurprising as you stumble your way through the archives of this webcomic, because you find out he can't do anything whatsoever when it comes to writing. He is not a bad writer, since he is not even a writer. He is to writing what a child molester is to sex. He is trying his hardest to do it, but he is just not doing it the way it should be done and that makes everyone else either very uncomfortable or very angry.
Why, yes, I did just basically say he was a literary paedophile. A nonce of the written word. A walking Amber Alert just waiting to go off. The man deeply offends me by his very existence. His writing, and my God it pains me to call it that, is of such a sub-par standard that it is off the bottom of the chart. I have known, literally, 12-year-olds with a better grasp of writing than him. And he's, I don't know, mid-twenties or something pathetic like that. It's embarrassing to think that he's not improved one jot since he was a prepubescent sprog, and outrageous to think that he actually gets people to pay him for this shit.
Yes, just like paedophiles have their little enclaves where they persuade each other that they're not actually creepy little shits, Deegan has its own wretched hive of scum and villainy. Knowing them, they'll probably take that description as a compliment and try and be all "ironic" about it without actually having the faintest notion of what irony actually is. This is because anyone who likes Dominic Deegan is a fucking moron.
The art is bad, the writing is bad, yet they cling to it like stink on shit. Why? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. Ask any of those vacant-eyed mongoloids and they'll say it's because Deegan is good, which is an obvious lie, so we can discount that. Sufficed to say, it's probably like one of those stamp collection conventions where you see a bunch of hopeless dorks engaging in a boring activity you cannot fathom. Except for the fact that stamp collection is a better way to spend your time than reading Dominic Deegan. Hell, jamming pins under your fingernails is probably a better way to spend your time.
So, you are undoubtedly asking, what makes the writing bad? Let's begin with our humble protagonist, Mr. Dominic Deegan. He is a simple man - not in deed, not in thought, but in nature. He is as flat and shallow as the paper he is drawn on. He is a self-insertion character, a Mary-Sue, designed for some pretty tame wish-fulfilment on Terracciano's behalf. Indeed, he is a Mookie-Sue. Terracciano actually draws himself pretty much the same as Dominic, but without the glasses and with longer hair.
Okay, I'm nit-picking here, all webcomic creators everywhere do this. It's creepy, quit it.
Deegan starts out living, rather oddly, in a village full of idiots. I'm not kidding, try reading it if you feel you can stomach it. Everyone is blessed with room temperature IQs, not to mention they're all racists. Hell, they're just generic bigots, really. Call me picky, but when I look for a place to live the first thing I'd like to be aware of is if I'm moving in next door to the fucking Klan. But it's okay, Dominic has nothing to fear - everyone who does not share his (ie, Terracciano's) opinion is a straw man waiting to be huffed and puffed away with some little speech that's supposed to be scathing, perhaps, but just comes across as forced.
Forget cleanliness, Deegan is next to godliness. He's a saint. He has no flaws, besides the temporary ones he adopts so Terracciano can write some character conflict that reads like a stroppy teenager arguing that he really, really wants to get his nose pierced. But that's always resolved quickly, pretty much always with Dominic coming out on top and smelling of roses. He's the good guy, and you know it because he is a Good Guy. He's selfless and caring and brave and noble and loving and honest and true, like fifteen Care Bears sandwiched into one snout-faced body. Quite predictably, his bad guys are the same.
Remember Captain Planet? Remember how the villains would cackle with glee at pollution just for pollution's sake? Even if it didn't accomplish anything besides fouling up the planet? Deegan's bad guys are on the same level, if not lower. Forget matching up to the kind of rogue's gallery sported by Batman, these guys are lucky if they're even half of what Skeletor is.
Dominic has no depth, his bad guys have less depth. While Dominic kinda alternates his motivation between "I must save the world" and "I must protect my friends" in his sappy, flat way, his opponents have only one motivation: "because I'm EEEEVIL! Muahaha!"
You know, I really wish I was lying right now, but this is the sad truth. Dominic Deegan's villains do villainous things because they are villains. Whatever backstory they have, if any, they are evil in it. Sometime it's just a little seed of evil, sometimes they crawled out of a womb covered in tar and hissing through pointed teeth as their eyes search for other, more wholesome babies to kill and devour. But there is no motivation in them beyond that they are evil.
There is one exception to this rule, and he did things because he wanted to save the world. Only, his way of saving the world was not Dominic's way of saving the world and thus it was evil and thus he was evil and so Dominic had to go Super-Magic-Saiyan and power up to defeat him. That's not hyperbole, he really did that.
Following any villain's chain of logic, it all boils down to "because they're EVIL!" which is pretty solid reasoning for an eight-year-old watching a guy with a skull for a face try to rule the world by stealing the powers of some guy with a phallic symbol and a bowlcut, but an utterly pathetic thing for a grown man to hang on to. If there weren't greater flaws in his writing, I would chastise Mookie for it. But as it stands I'd prefer to compare him to a paedophile again, or perhaps tell him to stop fucking writing since he's so very, very bad at it.
The supporting characters aren't much better. Luna, the love of Dominic's perfect life and apparently equal in genius to him, suffers from depression. Being blissfully unaware what depression actually is, Terracciano has her drink and try to kill herself. The source of her woes is two oversized teeth that stick out like little tusks. Despite this tiny, incidental physical blemish, she is apparently totally hot like woah. The thing is, she has no reason to still have those teeth.
She said she didn't go see an "Alterist" - a wizardly plastic surgeon, ho ho, very clever - because they are creepy. That is literally what she said. Never mind she is contemplating killing herself, she doesn't want to be creeped out for a few minutes. Nor does she just file them down, no. She doesn't even give an explanation for that. When Dominic loses some teeth in the middle of SAVING THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD HELL YEAH he has some people make him some false ones. Which look so much like real teeth you can't tell the difference. What was stopping Luna - totally prepared to off herself - from knocking out two teeth and getting two utterly perfect replacements? Nothing. What was even stopping her from knocking them out and getting any other kind of replacement? Nothing. Somehow she has pride in her disfigurement, but also hates it enough to kill herself over it. Wow, Terracciano, that doesn't smack of forcing the issue at all.
Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire (even though I don't think he's ever been "hired" in the entire Goddamn comic) is Mookie's ickle soapbox to decry what he views as the evils of the world. Somehow he thinks that, despite his terrible art and terrible writing, he's more than qualified to change the world and speak out on such evils as racism and bigotry and rape. Yes, rape. Specifically: orc rape.
Being a twentysomething male with barely any experience in relationships, Terracciano decided that he knew all there was to know about rape. Especially raping a child. Now, all paedophile jokes aside, this is a heavy assumption to make. Established writers, who are actually competent at writing, do not leap into rape storylines headfirst. Even the ones who write really terrible rape storylines don't just knock it off on a whim. Terracciano is different, though. He will not hear a word of criticism against his comic, so much so that he shuts down his forums and deletes e-mails that aren't mindless adoration. Which is probably why he took the Deegan Express full steam ahead to Rapetown Station.
Here's how the story goes: Melna is an orc, a Dominic Deegan race grabbed wholesale from World of Warcraft. They are basically the Horde side all put together: a proud warrior race who borrow heavily from American Indians. They are peaceful vegetarians, because that is such a unique and original viewpoint to reverse the stereotype that way! Aha! Ahaha! Moving on...
Melna is an orc, and her father is some bigshot jerk. He ends up getting murdered in front of Melna's eyes. His wife, Melna's mother, also dies in front of her eyes. Then someone who she thought was her friend takes her, as she cries and screams, and rapes her. In order to save her life.
In Dominic Deegan, there is an afterlife. It is cold, hard fact. Everyone knows it. It's a place you can travel to without having to die, even. You've got Dominic and other wizardly types popping in every other storyline. In order to get into heaven, the "good people" part, you just have to be vaguely good-ish. Like I said earlier, people here are either wholly good or wholly evil, so anyone who doesn't drown kittens for a living is going to heaven. Which means that Melna's parents went there after they got stabbed and shot with arrows in front of their 14-year-old daughter.
After this went down, there were two options: Melna gets executed, for some reason, or someone takes her as his "wife" which means rape rape rape. So-called friend does the second option, which apparently makes him a selfless hero for saving her life and stopping her from living in eternal bliss with her parents.
Yes, go read it if you're not believing me. Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire justifies the rape of a little girl. Justifies, excuses and trivialises a rape of a little girl. Makes it into so much heartstring-tugging ratings fuel to appease the fans. "Oh gee golly gosh," they say, "this is so deep."
All of the above takes place during a storyline where they have a rock concert. Yes, a rock concert. With magical electrical guitars. You do not know the meaning of the word pathetic when you see these flat, lifeless characters act out a rock concert in a soundless medium. Usually in black and white, too. It's like a 14-year-old girl trying to explain what a rad time she had at her first Fallout Boy concert via DeviantArt. Except then she gets raped.
As an aside, Melna is now in love with the guy who raped her as a child, and has actually referred to him as her "husband" - this actually made me physically sick to my stomach, which was the first time Dominic Deegan ever inspired any kind of emotion in me besides pity.
Dominic Deegan is a bad webcomic. It's so bad I have just spent two thousand words explaining how bad it is and I still have more to say about it - but perhaps another time. In the mean time, do not read Dominic Deegan. Reading it is a chore, much like scouring your eyes with wire wool and bleach, only not as fun. Worse, you may find yourself accidentally enjoying the comic, which should bring about the dull realisation that you have no taste in writing, that you cannot discern pure shit from anything that's not pure shit, that you are a fucking idiot who likes Dominic Deegan and can never show their face in society again.
Just for laughs I'll say, once more, that Terracciano is so bad at writing I'm willing to compare him to a Goddamn child molester. However, he'll never know because this is criticism of his shitty work, and that means he'll never read it. He is content to be in his warm little bubble of ignorance, soaking in a pool of his own filth, blissfully unaware that his writing is some of the worst writing to ever exist in the entire universe.
"Mookie", from the bottom of my heart, die in a fire. Seriously, die. No one will miss you.
But... and I apologise for this in advance, I really want to comment on your analysis of the wotch, and the people who read it, from the perspective of a person who actually has one of the fetishes that it plays on. I'd post this in the thread but for the fact that it would be incredibly humiliating and this is just about the only way I can comment anonymously.
Again, I have to say, I mostly agree. The thing about it being a honey-pot is spot on, despite how it might seem the sum-total of tg stuff on the net is very limited, when compared to other fetishes at least, and "the community" wants it to remain in operation for a long time because there really isn't much of anything else worth reading. This is not to say that I think that the wotch is worth reading, as, and I'm sure a lot of the readership feel the same way, just that given that most folks' only hope for regular new content comes from terrible webcomics and the sub-fanfiction dregs on fictionmania, they understandably prefer the comics.
My only real point of contention in fact, is as to the nature of the fetish and the people who have it. Sure, people like you describe, shut-ins who imagine themselves as girls for the attention are part of it, but not a large part. There also the transexuals, the misogynists who fetishise the idea of "femininity", people so incredibly submissive (and, again, sexist) that they view being a woman as an extension of that, the incredibly dominating type, who are gay and like the idea of fucking boys in dresses and the closet cases who use it as an outlet.
But not everyone is like that (yes, the whole point of this was essentially to say, "I... sorry /we're/ not all /total/ freaks!")
For a lot of us it is embarassing, and confusing. It's not homosexuality and it's not transexuality. Personally, I remember having a dream when I was around 8 about changing into a girl (which I found extremely weird) and others in later years. It definitely didn't start as a sexual thing but it became like that when sexuality became relevant.
Now, I'm not going to claim that this whole thing is legitimate, I couldn't do that with a straight face, it's fucking weird. But it isn't as straight-forward as you made out.
Still, your input is awesome and will go into kicking the shit out of EGS and The Wotch.
Have you...read the forum? Like, at all? A good 70% of us are on there for the sole purpose of discussing how shitty DD is. Sooo, yeah, dumbass thing to do on your part.
-Nevrmore
They sicken me.
Anyways, lets carry on J:
What makes you so professional that you can criticize another persons art? Or, for that matter, their story writing ability. Lets generalize for the sake of simplicity.
I would rather enjoy seeing how well you are at creationism. Especially seeing as you, mentally at least, seem to be on par with Edgar Allen Poe and Picasso.
You seem to have a lot of time on your hands and I can equate. I may not have nearly as much time but I get bored quite easily. But I have a job, a rather stressful one at that two. I'm twenty-one years old and going gray. My job entails that I protect people like you from the vagrants of the world. Enjoy Your freedom of speech.
My Brethren died for it.
My Comrades fight for it.
And you live because of it.
Find something better to do with your time. and stop pissing off comic artists. I've had like four people send this stupid blog to me.
What does your fucking profession have to do with anything? Why are you using it as an excuse to tell people how they can or can't spend their time on the motherfucking internet? Seriously kill yourself
Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks you shouldn't be allowed to criticize Terraciano just because you're too far beneath him to lick his boots - that's your inalienable right as a citizen of elitist-git-land, but. You should at least tip your hat to accuracy once in a while. I get tired of people pretending that the main character of Dominic Deegan is a perfect person - have you read the comic? The character is deeply and consistently flawed, while still being protagonist-grade.
Example - he doesn't devote nearly enough time to listening to others' opinions, stemming from the fact that he believes himself to be better than everyone else. Example 2 - he allows himself to be crippled by his fears at critical moments. There are more examples, but these are the ones that get the character in trouble. Which is good writing on Terraciano's part. What, you'd prefer the main character to be a caricature? Or do you need it spelled out for you - Maybe one of the supporting cast could spend a panel in each comic saying 'I hope Dominic's fear of the undead or his desire to control everything around him doesn't cause trouble for us in the next five minutes... that would be bad!'
Sorry, Solomon, but you have been confronted by a comic you actually have to interpret yourself(!) I realise this must be difficult for you, but I want you to know we're all here for you - you're welcome in our trendy, ironic hive of scum and villainy anytime you need the comic explained to you.
Any time at all.
In any case, I guess the Intarweb tubes are for complaining. Why even waste another moment thinking about this comic? Did you have to waste the time to write this?
RAD.
Anyone who's defending Deegan hasn't read a single thing I wrote, especially the part where I said "This is because anyone who likes Dominic Deegan is a fucking moron."
So okay, all you've done is convinced me I need to rip Deegan to pieces even moreso in order to explain to you Goddamn idiots that IT. IS. A. VERY. BAD. WEBCOMIC.
Oh who am I kidding, you're too dumb to realise. Also sup Nevrmore, you guys need to up the hating on that forum or it'll degenerate into something worse than the LJ community.
You still haven't said anything to convince me that the comic is bad. Oh, apart from 'It is a bad comic'. Oh how could any argument stand in the face of your fury.
To the TG-fetishist: I suppose that's an interesting point, as I've yet to see anything combine so many different fetishes into a single package as The Wotch, but still, we're talking about $1500 a month in donations! You and your community could hire actual artists and writers by the hour for your crazy fetish comics with that kind of money!
And I don't think posting in the thread will cause any harm to come to you, especially as you have no delusions about The Wotch's quality.
To anonymous guy who defended Deegan: Solomon actually did say Dominic Deegan the character had flaws sometimes. Maybe you should be the one doing some reading. And really, that criticism is small compared to some of the other ones. Try defending the terrible art that never improves, the zero-dimensional characterization (and no, having a character have a flaw is NOT 'good writing', just like being able to hold your breath does not make you a good Olympic diver), and the kicker: orc rape.
To the other anonymous guy: He actually provided several reasons—other than the self-evident fact of it being a bad comic—though I suppose that it would take a mastery of a certain mental process known as reading to extract them from the posted text. And sadly not all of us are blessed with such skills.
Instead, join me in pitying them.
epic fail.
the rape storyline? dude... did you even bother to read it?
your analysis of 'all the bad guys' in the comic? come on...
LEGENDARY FAIL.
but you know what cracks me up the most about your little 'oh i'm a whinny lil 12yr old who didnt' get a circlejerk and a free BJ from moookie' rant?
you say that he took 'orcs' as a concept from World of warcraft...
hahaahaahaha! seriously! You fail so hard! So hard it could fuck concrete!
get your facts straight idiot: tolkien invented orcs, Games workshop through their tabletop game Warhammer and various other games made them green. end of story - WoW has about as many 'original' ídeas as I have testicles.
which means they have two - in case you're wondering:
- a race 0f davey jones'
- Illegal danish
As for the author of the wotch and their attitude to jamming in fetishes like crazy: from what I hear it's only the tip of the iceburg. Guy is into all sorts of other creepy shit.
Oh, jeez, I am laughing so hard. Nothing is funnier than some teenager attempting to be some hot-shot intellectual puttin' down THE MAN with his keen insights and failing miserably at it.
This comments page is going to wind up a hundred times funnier than anything I could hope to write, through the sheer stupidity of your average Deegan fan.
Maybe if I'd rounded the whole review off with a talking cat doing some shitty wordplay you'd have eaten it up.
You know that other site, the one you think you can post stuff like that on? It's not funny there either.
Sort of skirting around the orc rape issue, aren't you, guys? Maybe it should be in the post title so they can't miss it.
"OH I AM SO WITTY WITH MY WORDPLAY!" Doesn't make many laugh. Especially in such a hypocritical way as you did it. You yourself are imitating what you've seen others do, and in a way that seems as if a 13 year old wrote it. No, not a 12 year old, I give you at least 13, as you have made some points that were mediocre at best, and impossible for a 12 year old.
Now, I won't throw in the "But I still hate the comic" so you can accept me as a person who isn't a drooling idiot. I'll let you keep your right to an opinion. So, you can think I'm a waste of the air I breath. It's fine, no hard feelings. You'll probably think I'm a waste of the air I'm breathing because I use logic and "OH HE USES BIG WORDS TO TRY TO SOUND SMART!".
Anyhow:
I'd be very interested in reading your perfect comic. As it would have 3d characters, great art, an original storyline, and all other elements of a good comic. I'm not joking, I really would love to read it. It would probably be one I check back on daily.
Until then, see you later
-Nick!
Also, will any of Mookie's nuthuggers actually DEFEND the man instead of attempt to change the topic? Is the best they can come up with stellar logic like 'Mookie didn't shamelessly steal from Warcraft, he shamelessly stole from TOLKIEN! This makes it perfectly acceptable and not in fact yet another piece of proof as to why exactly he is the terrible webcomic creator Solomon and countless others correctly deem him.' or 'Dominic has serious flaws! Except, you know, those flaws rarely if ever have any real impact, since Dominic ends up as a walking Deus Ex Machina who is loved by all who are Good and reviled by those who are Evil (that eventually get killed because you're not allowed to dislike Dominic and not be ridiculed/demonized/killed some time down the line)'... or even priceless commentary like "I'm going to make fun of you making fun of Mookie by making fun of you in the EXACT SAME FASHION that you made fun of him. I'll certainly show you while failing to realize that I'm basically saying that it's OK when I use big words and belittle someone, but it's BAD and worthy of patronizing dialogue when YOU do it. Oh, also, 'lol age reference'".
It's almost like they don't REALLY believe the words they use to defend Mookie, but they can't bring themselves to admit that they're wrong. They're left with the realization that they've wasted their time reading a painfully dry and formulaic pile of sketched tedium that passed for a webcomic... and their pride refuses to let them accept that. So, they come up with half-baked logic and 'scathing' commentary that has as much traumatic impact as a cup of lukewarm tea. Anything to dull the pain, as it were.
You've found a goldmine, Solomon! A hilarious goldmine that can only appreciate in value!
I'm reeling here, seriously.
The dude has a right to criticize whatever the fuck he wants to and you guys being little Mookie-sycophantic bitches aren't going to change his mind, you're just making it all the more enjoyable for him. Maybe if you all shut the fuck up and jerked off to DD in silence then this whole fiasco might be soundly forgotten, fading into obscurity, but you can't do that, can you?
No, every time someone badmouths Mookie it's a declaration of war. A declaration for you to start throwing out the ad hominems and straw men and every other logical fallacy that they have in the book, because, dammit, HE INSULTED AN AUTHOR YOU LIKE!
Hey, if you guys are so fervent with the argument that if "you don't like it, don't read it", then why don't you take a dose of your own medicine.
And yes, I'm always this much of a ball of hate.
--Nevrmore
Granted I could read through everything and try and address them all that way, but there's a fair amount of text and I might miss something, so I kindly ask for the list for efficiency's sake.
I would also kindly ask that you keep sweeping generalizations, such as all dominic deegan fans are complete idiots, out of it. Also please keep the insults to a minimum and stick to your points, they just take up space that you could be using to prove your point. I'll thank you for that.
~David
Oh wait, why, right?
Easy, you take your review and apply the whole "If I'm as offensive as possible, people will like it."
Oh yeah, good original writing there.
Oh, right, I'm a Deegan fan, so you can commence thinking my opinion is worthless just so you don't have to come up with a thought out response.
-Sipex
"
I'm sure John would be more than willing to engage in any actual argumentation, but no one here is making any. It's just people (you, for example) saying "you engage in the same behavior!"...but he doesn't. The blog post actually gives reasoned complaints about the comic and why he finds these things objectionable. You are just calling him a hypocrite with no warrant and moving on. These things do not arguments make.
"Easy, you take your review and apply the whole "If I'm as offensive as possible, people will like it.""
It's getting a rise out of people who like DD, and making people who already hate it laugh. Given that the reactions are near perfect, I think it's written fine.
-Dylan (Baelfael on the forums)
"OMG!!! I need approval!!! John made Mookie angry!!! Be my god!!! Look! I'm defending you, now say my name!!!"
I mean, sure it's not written like that nor with those words but it holds the same base. I thought you guys had more pride than that, more independence but you're acting no better than a Mookie humper with a positive IQ...
I appreciate the response Baelfael but the post was meant for John and I would like to know his response.
Calling Terracciano a literary paedophile may seem an attempt at shock, but it's not. It's an accurate description of someone who is basically childfucking when it comes to writing. It has an added bonus of indirectly calling him a paedophile, which is also good because I dislike the man very much.
If you want to know why, look at the latest entry, "More Dominic Deegan". Terracciano is a spineless, simpering little nothing who wants to feel big about himself. It's not that I just despise his shitty hack writing, or his terrible animu art - the man is just offensive to me.
I felt I needed to say something "witty" and "clever" and waste space in your blog comments much like the other people who masturbate to orc rape that have posted here.
Also, please continue posting these. I am not lying when I say that I actually finally removed Deegan from my bookmarks when I read this.
I am a human failure for having it in my bookmarks for so long, I admit it. I thought it was marginally entertaining for a little bit and then slowly but surely just clicked the bookmark out of habit. It is gone now though; again, thanks in part, to you.
a) The art has improved. The style was never intended to be realistic but the proportions of the bodies, faces, hands, etc has drastically improved. Stylized? Of course but so are most of the comics in the paper. A similarity to anime is quite common these days and isn't a deterant for most. And authors using creative photography or drawings to show their best side? Nothing new there either. Just about every artist does it.
b) The characters are archtypes. In a fantasy epic, the familiar characters aren't a hinderence to the story. Classic fantasy rarely has any characters with flaws. Any character flaws are an improvement to a story in the genre. These archtypes (hero, warrior, villian) have been around for centuries. Using them isn't viewed as bad writing for other authors. The story has addressed fewer epic things recently and is working through the kinks. Better than "journey, fight, journey, fight" no?
c) I rather liked the thingy of order vs the thingy of balance vs the thingy of chaos. Differences of opinion on how the save the world is quite common. Campy? Sure but campy from time to time isn't bothersome. Do you spend all of your day reading campy webcomics? I don't.
d) The comic's art doesn't distinguish between drop dead gorgeous and homely. I don't think Luna is that great looking but her boyfriend thinks she is. Again, quite normal in the real world. Perhaps the lacking in the art to show picture beauty could be criticised but it isn't a big deal. And the teeth? Accepting how one looks is an important part of growing up. Suicidal feelings weren't based on the teeth. Please don't tell me you actually thought they were.
e) The rape storyline was a decent exercise in writing. Was it perfect? Good grief no but for even attempting it I'll give him props. Most people won't touch it with a ten foot pole and if he didn't get all of the nuances I'll chock it up to the genre. Rape is always a sensitive subject and personally, I think the more it gets talked about the better we will be. As long as the topic is approache with even an ounce of respect, I won't totally knock it. "Trivializes"? I don't think so. Did not address fully? Nope but it isn't a rape comic. Oh, and the psychology of rape is complicated. It is not uncommon to have a rape victim fall in love with their abuser especially in odd and extreme circumstances. Damn convient to the story but funny how life is like that. Deus ex machina is much more common in life than we would like to believe.
f) Orcs. Fantasy genre. Nothing is original anymore when it comes to races. Get over it.
So all in all, I disagree with you but I do so respectfully. Perhaps you can do the same.
It doesn't help that her mother was counting on the remarkably over the top bigoted knight to smash her dreams to tiny bits. "It's not my fault you look like an orc."
"GAH! IT'S THE CROSS DRESSING SEER!" That guy better hide behind his desk and fear for his life because of a man in a dress! He might molest your children! Or look at your naughty bits!
Sweet baby jesus, why did I ever read this?
e)He created a background for his orcs in which the only way his orc hero could have possibly saved his honor and her life was to rape a her, a child. I am finding this to be in poor form, doesn't actually discuss *anything* about rape, and in fact pretty much just drops the issue without really discussing it almost right away. I am also imagining you masturbating to badly written fanfiction about men raping children and the child eventually enjoying within 5 minutes of it starting, *right now*. Or maybe it's a brother on his sister!
Onii-chan! Not so ruff!
This is half because I think you are a bad person, giving bad reasons to justify rape and also because I am a jerk from the internet. Just so we are clear here, I have no real delusions of being a superior human being.
I mean I *did* have this comic on my list until recently.
Impossible situations happen every day. Like I said, I am impressed he even tried the story arc. As for the discussion of rape, as I pointed out, it isn't a comic about rape. Demanding that every bit of the issue be examined is beyond the scope of the comic. Also, demanding perfection is silly. I hope he is willing to try other challenging stories in the future and I hope he has improved on his writing. Practice makes perfect you know.
Now I have been very polite in my disagreement. Can't you do the same? I think you are a bad person too but I don't lower myself by insisting that you have rape fantasies. Please grow up.
b) The characters are not archetypes, unless "self insertion" and "dream girlfriend" are archetypes nowadays. Do not, ever again, compare Terracciano to anyone with talent. He is not working within the topoi of established literary convention. He is stealing everything he can find and mashing it together in the hopes of doing what the grown ups do.
c) The thing about order vs. chaos is that people have been doing it for years and have been doing it better for years. Terracciano offered no new insight and seemed to be saying that it was neither order, nor chaos, nor even a balance that was best. It was motherfucking Dominic Deegan hell yeah that was the right choice. I can do with camp, I can't do with shit.
d) Luna starts off as being "oh noes she has tusks she's uggo 2 da fwiggin max" but then suddenly everyone wants to bone her. Maybe it's that "inner beauty" thing, but she's pretty much designed as wish fulfilment. She's a subservient, intelligent, possibly-attractive woman who fawns over the self-insertion character of Dominic Deegan and they are 2getha 4eva. It's nauseating to think that Terracciano is basically writing his own imaginary girlfriend.
e) There have been uses of rape, in literature, which have been done well. This is at the other end of the spectrum. I am not going to say this as a boast or anything of that sort - indeed, I have been holding back on it and have used this information in neither entry on Deegan - but I know, personally, a victim of rape. She was rather young when it happened, and let me tell you the only emotion she feels towards that man is burning rage. The only activity she'd like to do is tear off his genitalia with a rusty meathook and then wiggle it around in the gaping, bloody hole. Every time I see that damn orc rape storyline, I think of her, and I think of how she would feel if she saw it. Luckily, she hasn't so far.
f) Having orcs is, I suppose, what most hack fantasy is about. But Terracciano nicks them from World of Warcraft. I've played through Warcraft III, and seen a lot of WoW, and in both the orcs are a fierce warrior race who are in tune with nature because of yadda yadda who cares. The point is, Blizzard nabbed a lot from the American Indians (and other sources) in order to make their orcs. Terracciano pretty much took everything from Blizzard, at least to begin with. Then he started playing up the American Indian aspect until it was at the level of being an embarrassing parody. Plus, he's drawn orc pantyshots. No.
I am a jerk and you justify rape comics poorly.
I think I can mostly be content with myself.
Then, they will rape you.
And Order vs Chaos is hardly a new idea in literature, it can be traced back to Freud's concept of the id, ego and superego, which is simply a restating of an idea that goes back well beyond that.
So don't you fucking think that this literary abortion is anything remotely resembling original, or even decent.
b) You must not know what an archeype is. Self image aside, nothing new.
c) New insight isn't required for a good time. It wasn't mind blowing but not everything has to be. By the way, who said that he was the best writer since Poe or anything of the sort? The writing does not have to be amazing to enjoy a comic.
d) I think you missed Luna's character entirely. Subservient she is not. And artists drawing their own relationships? That is so common as to be called a trend.
e) You assume that all rape is the same with the same feelings and the same outcomes. I hope your friend is doing okay but I do not think her experience is the only one. The most common? Yes, but not the only one.
f) Blizzard has made their orcs so generic that everything that isn't "Hulk Smash" and green seems like a blizzard clone. Fantasy has a limited supply of races and they all have very established characteristics. Using one isn't something to despise.
So I don't like your taste in comics and you don't like mine. I just thought I would address the points I disagreed with since no one else seemed to be doing so.
To Skyman: May I point out the definition of archetype (I will apologize for forgetting the e)? Please look it up and notice the first two entries. Fantasy archetypes are established and known as "hero, villian, damsel in destress" etc. I never insisted that Dominic Deegan was an original. It draws heavily on established fantasy epic storylines. A good story doesn't have to be innovative every time.
In fact, why don't you take that redwood out of your gaping, bleeding asshole, and drag yourself down a fucking library, and check out "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Cambell and "The Writers Journey" by Christopher Vogler. Who know, maybe when you understand why really literature is like, you will have a better insight into Dominic Deegan.
b) Bitch, do not presume that you know more about me when it comes to writing. I know what a motherfucking archetype is, and Dominic Deegan does not use them. If Terracciano knew a single thing about writing fantasy, rather than just copying from his favourite films and books in a vain attempt to be like his idols, then he might know about archetypes. As it stands, he doesn't and he's just kinda winging it based on what he's stolen.
c) Terracciano, and his little simpering crowd, have that opinion. He has delusions of adequacy. True enough, webcomics do not have to have perfect writing. But when your art is shit and your writing is shit, you've got to improve one of them in order to be anything but shit. Terracciano hasn't, doesn't want to, and so he's pure shit, baby!
d) Please! Luna is a textbook subservient bitch. She's always deferring to Dominic, any time she's dominant it's at the request of Dominic, and she basically exists as the ideal geek girl for Terracciano to drool over in his daydreams. If you think Luna is a strong, independent, self-reliant woman you are fucking delusional.
e) No, not all occurences of rape will have the same outcomes. But you know what? If I write a story with a rape in it, which is unlikely since I don't do that kind of shit for cheap points like Terracciano, then I'll treat it with dignity and treat it realistically. See, I can do that because I have second-hand knowledge. Terracciano has none, which is why he's portraying it so badly, which is why it's a fucking insult and which is why he's a hack writer who probably researched the damn topic by watching Japanese porn. Which would explain everything, really.
f) I suppose you could say they're generic, in the same way you could say a lightbulb is bright. But compared to the mighty generic sun of Deegan, they pale in comparison.
Don't say you don't like my taste in comics, you only know what I hate so far. Unless everything you like is everything I hate.
Please continue to enjoy your orgy of venom. It isn't worth it to discuss a topic with a snake. It just isn't fun anymore.
Their comments are pretty much what you'd expect from fans of a shambolic collection of random fantasy clichés and ill advised plotlines. Get a clue guys, this is NOT writing, this is the kind of rubbish that 12 year olds draw in the back of their geography book in class and tear the page out and put it in the bin in case anyone else accidentally reads it.
Someone randomly posted your reivew blog to an IRC channel I hang out in and I spent the last few hours reading ALL of Dominic Deegan in sheer disbelief and horror that something could be so utterly terrible. It manages to be both boringly derivative and uniqely lame at the same time.
I had to laugh at the people posting here "admiring" the rape storyline. Are you serious? it was handled with all the subtlety of a housebrick to the skull, made no sense whatsoever (inkeeping with the comic's general theme it seems), and left me feeling confused and bored.
Amusingly "mookie" appears to have recovered from a recent bout of "depression", according to one of his three unashamedly self-promoting forum-blogs. If he wasn't clearly mentally ill, it would be even funnier.
He is clearly a not-very-well-disguised paedo.
ATTENTION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: HE IS TAKING HIS BALL AND HE IS GOING HOME.
It's really really funny.
Yes, I read Dominic Deegan. Sometimes, a little, sort of. However I read it, I will make no excuse on my behalf; in some strange way, I enjoyed it. I believe it was (in part) laziness, in that I had seen a webcomic other people thought was good, began reading it myself, and never actually stopped reading. In fact, DD exemplifies everything I dislike in the fantasy genre to date. This extends beyond Dominic Deegan, to other places such as Final Fantasy and most Dungeons & Dragons-based writing.
I'm not going to complain about the art, as that has been done enough. Besides, the "snout-faces" don't bother me, because I have a warped sense of reality stemming from having lived under a rock my entire life. I won't even complain about the writing, though I honestly should, because that doesn't concern me. While writing is a subject I am avidly interested in, it is concept- and world-creation that really does it for me. So, then, I'd like to say something about the world of Mookie's comic.
First, the "races". There are Elves, Orcs, Lycanthropes, a mish-mash race and two grades of human: pasty white and deeply tan. The mish-mash, which might have been the only conceivably interesting race in terms of originality, is quite obviously a slight alteration of the Naga, with a sort of lizard-face and donkey ears. Not only that, but as of yet only one has appeared, and only then very sparsely. Humans? Black and white, boring, but that's OK because they're just humans. We all know humans, they're SUPPOSED to be boring (sarcasm). The elves are D&D elves, the Orcs are Warcraft orcs, and the Lycanthropes are a more audience-friendly variety of D&D lycanthropes. They have no originality, and to whoever said it is difficult to work with fantasy races, I would like to say you are quite wrong. A lot can be done to change the generic fantasy mold, even if you do choose to include the same old races. Making them more engaging in their religious beliefs, customs, philosophies, even general appearance can do great things to a race. Let's say, for example, I've got some elves. They're still near-human stature, slim-built, and have a natural affinity for magic. However, rather than having them be a self- interested, haughty race of aritocrats, make them a group of dedicated warriors, whose lives revolve around a day-to-day struggle with each other, other races, and the wildlife around them. Let them get down and dirty, throw themselves in the trenches, and have a good berserk-ing every now and then. Heck, why not make several different types of elves, all divided up and scattered around the place, with different beliefs and customs? Some are champions of justice, others disgusting, vile criminals. But whatever you do, do SOMETHING, just get off the same old race types. They. Are. Boring.
Next, let's look at character-to- character interaction. And I don't mean how people talk to each other, I mean how males and females of different races react to those of their own race, and those of other races. Apparently, in the world of Dominic Deegan, everyone is all peachy, and happiness is widespread, or something. You say the orcs hate the humans, and vice versa? Then what about the orcs who crossed the border, first to go to a rock concert, then to escape the storms of Maltak? Wouldn't the humans, who supposedly hate orcs with a passion, just butcher them with their superior numbers and great skill? I mean, an Orc war did happen once before, why not again? It seems like a convenient excuse to obliterate an entire race of people. Genocide, Hitler, I know, but that's how bigoted, idiotic people act. And apparently, that's how the people of the DD universe are.
Okay, government. Can't say much, as only Callanian (human) places have been explored as of yet. Callan seems to be a monarchical, or perhaps aristocratic, government. Nothing new here. Under the head government, the towns have Mayors (not chiefs, or clan-heads, or even lords) who, I suppose, have the power to administer laws with impunity, sort of like a dictatorship. They probably have to submit to Callanian base-laws, but those are probably broken all the time anyway. Besides humans, there are the orcs, who are a bunch of tribes with separate rules and customs. Like the Indians, only more senselessly violent and vegetarian. Considering Mookie is both Vegan and a Metal fan, I'm not going to look far trying to find his inspiration.
I could go on, but I'm bored and tired. Keep writing things, so I can laugh at them! It's more entertaining that way.
a) Was the artwork, which isn't anywhere near perfect I won't argue with that. I've seen webcomics with better artwork, but also not many of those comics update nearly everyday. I do believe Mookie is trying to improve, but completely changing the way you draw probably isn't as easy as you try and make it sound. And would almost certainly mean that the comic would be stalled or the like while he worked on drawing in a different style. And since Mookie doesn't want to stop updating without a damn good reason along the lines of he physically can't such a break isn't likely to happen. In my case I don't particularly care about the artwork, so that doesn't get in my way of enjoying the comic.
b) I don't have any particular arguement about the archetypes since I don't consider them archetypes. I disagree with you on Mookie having no talent, since he's easily more talented than I, and feel free to make all sorts of nasty comments and snips at that, which is what I'm guessing will be the response to that particular comment.
c) Nope order vs. chaos is a pretty old debate, and Mookie didn't add anything new to it. However I didn't realise that he needed to go to such philisophical depths that he create a new take on the subject before he dare use it in his comic. Also I think that the comic went more with both extremes are bad. Was it just coincidence that Dominic was the champion of balance? Hell no, Dominic is the main protaganist in a fictional fantasy tale, and quite often said protaganist winds up supporting whatever particular side that the writer thinks is right. Quite common and I don't see why you're trying to raise a fuss about it. And if you just want to use the comeback, "Because it's shit!" Feel free. I disagree with you, but you are perfectly free to have your own opinion.
d)A slight clarification, Luna started off the result of being fed self hate by her family for years, which is far worse then merely thinking of oneself as ugly.
And I can recall no point when, "suddenly everyone wants to bone her" really occured. I can recall several instances where she was called ugly after deciding to stay with Dominic. Stunt called her ugly directly, and both Bumper and Sigfried made comments more or less calling her an orc, which apprently is an insult in Callan.
And in any case, you might not believe in soulmates or even anything close to it, but I know people who do and I don't see any reason why it's not possible. This kind of relationship would more or less mean that the couple would agree on just about everything, would almost always get along perfectly, and more or less act like Dominic and Luna. Does that make Luna subservient? No, the only way she would subservient in that regard was if she disagreed with him, and didn't say or do anything because she's subservient. Are they perhaps sickeninly sweet together? Quite possibly, but that doesn't make their relationship any less plausible. On a side note I consider the self insertion, and dream girlfriend kind of comments your personal opinion, and you really can't argue with someone's personal opinion. So I'll ignore those here.
e) And on to the rape topic. First I'm sorry for your friend and I hope she's doing well, and that gets the justice she deserves. Now on to the argument. I'll note first that Melna was very very angry at Stonewater for raping her. She did after all take a hammer and literally break his face. Granted she could have done more damage and to more specific areas, but maybe she was more concerned with getting the hell out away from the tribe that pretty much approved her getting raped. Secondly concerning the option of her just dying and going to heaven to be with her parents. Please recall that this was written from the perspective of a human on earth, and here the afterlife isn't nearly as certain. So who knows what would have happened to her from that point of view. If you want a more in comic reason, since the orcs seem to have mostly just nature wizards I kinda doubt they have many plane travelers with them, so clear knowledge of the afterlife isn't necesarily as common as you assume. So Stonewater tries to fix the situaiton so that Melna doesn't die, then the tribe says that it's either kill her or rape her. Stonewater chose the latter which could very well have ben a huge mistake, and he's ashamed of himself because he even could rape her like that. So while I'm sorry for your frined I'm guessing that the only real similarity in the situations is that there was rape. If I'm wrong in that assumption I apologize. It migth be to much to believe that Melna wouldn't want to kill him. Because something like that you wouldn't forget even if it is about 20 years later. Apparently Melna also prefered to be alive, and saw his reasons even if she despises them. I'm guessing she would blame her tribe more so since they are the ones that really got her raped. Now I'm not saying that what Mookie did was anywhere near perfect, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were other literature that did it better, but that's a very very difficult subject to get right, especially if you try for something more complex then a bastard rapes a girl, which should end with her hating him for life and he deserves to get his genitalia removed for being the bastard that he is. Unfortunately the situation in Dominic Deegan is more complex then that.
f)I don't see any real connection between any "hack fantasy" and having orcs. But putting that aside, I'm not sure why you're so sure that he stole it from Blizzard, probably because you are for some strange reason convinced that he can't create anything and steals everything no clue how you got that idea. But in any case there is the quite likely possibilty of coming to somewhat the same conclusion through different thought patterns. It happens all the time you know. First let's start with the tolkien orc. Ugly and evil more or less sums them up. Now I want to make them a race that's about par with humans, aka not to bad but with some serious flaws, so since the humans are more or less your standard medival fantasy let's make the orcs live in tribes. Tribes makes me think of the Native Americans which leads us to nomadic, if we go by the plains indians, and worshiping of nature and animals. Since this world has magic they get to be nature wizards mostly. Now just to flesh them out a bit lets give them quirks like they're actaully vegetarians, and tribal dances makes me think of dancing and drums so that + nature magic gets us chandaks. Fiddle with them a bit from there and you get to dominic deegan orcs. Is it also possible that he borrowed some from warcraft? Yes, but then again in the fantasy genre borrowing is a very common and widely accepted practice, so if the professional fantasy writers have no problem with it neither do I. Are the dominic deegan orcs a carbon copy of warcraft orcs? Not really, while the orcs in warcraft have a drummer, he that isn't the mage, and there are no dancers in the orcs. Really since the Deegan orcs have more depth then the warcraft orcs even if he did steal them he's improved upon them, which I think is perfectly acceptable.
That's just about everything I believe, and I feel like noting, John, that you seem to be incapable of writing a response without insulting the person you're replying to if you disagree with them. I'm not refering to cursing I don't care about that it's the insults that get in the way of making a point. So please try and improve your debate skills, and respond without insults, they don't really help you and I could care less.
So if I've missed any particularly salient points that you wish to point out, please feel free to do so. I will review and respond most likely. Thank you for your time.
~David
I do find it extremely hypocritical that John calls all DD fans fucking morons and criticizes all DD fans for immediately flaming him for disagreeing. But whatever, everyone is a bit of a douche.
I actually read a majority of the DD archive a few years ago. I can't say I hated it, but I definitely didn't enjoy it. It's the kind of thing where when you read into the hype so much that when you finally check out the product and it doesn't impress you at the get-go you rationalize it must get better later on so you keep reading. But that's my problem with DD, it just didn't get better for me. When I finally finished the entire archive and didn't receive a payoff I felt cheated. I had just put up with with 3 years worth of below-par artwork and several storylines that all ended in 'Dominic, you're awesome!' for nothing.
Please, don't use that whole 'he's not a bad artist, that's his style', it's a load of horse shit. It's like when crazy artists paint pictures with elephant feces and try to pass it off as art. But in the end, not matter what you call it, it's still shit smeared on a canvas. Granted, not everything can be drawn realistically (look at Penny Arcade, it's anything but realistic but it's incredibly stylized and well done), but even art styles can be crap.
My personal problem with Terracciano is that every character is some sort of variation of Dominic. All their eyes are the same as well as the rest of their facial features and shape of face. Cover the hairline and give Dominic tusks, and boom, you have Luna's face. Terracciano doesn't really attempt to give any of the characters stand out features (except a beard, a scar, etc). Half the awkward body types of his characters don't seem like they've been done on purpose, but just for lack of skill. Terracciano especially seems to have issues with drawing women, their hips are too long and flat, their breasts waaaay too close together and their asses are rectangular. Being a woman, I can tell you first hand that breasts do not sprout from the direct centers of our chests and move when we move our arms. His male form varies from either shapeless thickened stick-figures to men who don't have muscles, but lumpy growths randomly coming out of them.
I am not hating for the sake of hating, I genuinely feel Terracciano sucks balls and is sort of creepy. He's the sole reason I don't think DD will ever have a redeeming quality. He's too overly sensitive and needs to accept the fact not everyone is going to fawn over him. It's ridiculous to think that someone would even bother to start a webcomic without being ready to take criticism. Even though I don't enjoy his work, I would at least have respect for the man if he took negative comments in stride and used to better his work. But he doesn't, he huffs and cries and deletes it then looks to his fans for sympathy. He could at least try and take it like a man rather than a spoiled child.
That's his biggest issue from my stand point, he's unwilling to change and his work suffers for it. He's not willing to better his artwork and he's not willing to change his tried methods of storytelling. Because Luna was depressed and is now comfortable with herself isn't character development. Because the character didn't really develop, it just happened for the sake of pushing the story along. Many of the characters have remained the same 1-dimensional selves they were 5 years ago. How many times has he used that lame word-pun gag? 100? More? Was it even funny the first time? Terracciano reuses what comes easy to him instead of going in more challenging directions.
Even though it doesn't effect the quality of DD, has anyone ever read his news updates? THE GUY CREEPS ME OUT. He acts so much more like a 13-year old anime obsessed girl as opposed to a fully grown man. He called himself Mookie for pete's sake. He tries to make himself seem as adorable as possible and yes, it creeped me out so badly that it was one of the bigger reasons I stopped reading. Again, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but it bothered the beejesus out of me.
Fans who will immediately jump on this because it isn't in awe of DD are only fueling the kind of spoiled child behavior 'Mookie' seems to have, so please, don't.
-Sunday
That's all, pretty much. The comic itself is mildly enjoyable. The interplay between the characters is entertaining in a Joss Whedon sort of way from time to time.
You are getting massive amounts of venom in response to your mostly-accurate screed because Terracciano himself is tough to hate. You've stirred up a lot of hate for him yourself just because you think his comic is shit, but personally you really have no reason to hate the guy. Even the rape thing is just badly-justified and poorly-thought-out writing.
Sound, fury, signifying nothing, blah, blah, etc.
Yeah, I dunno. Fuck you, I guess?
What can I say? It's easy comedy.
As for "oh but Terracciano/Mookie is such a fwiggin' nice guy" - oh okay. This changes everything!
He doesn't have a shitty webcomic because he's a nice guy. His storyline about rape wasn't mortifying because he's a nice guy. His inability to improve himself isn't pathetic because he's a nice guy.
Hey, so, nobody here can take issue with anything I've said on my blog because I'm a nice guy. Everyone calling me a troll/faggot/douche/jerk/whatever can't do that because I'm a nice guy.
Seriously, when you're a nice guy you can't be held accountable for any failings you might have and everyone has to suck you off because you're a nice guy.
Nobody can refute this, either, because I said it and I'm a nice guy. So start circlejerking this instant, I demand to be insulated from the real world - as is the natural born right of anyone who's a nice guy!
Highly hypocritical too, considering you're whinging about his supposed trivialisation of rape whilst you trivilise paedophilia by calling him and anyone else you disagee with a paedophile. Great job!
You hate his work yada yada yada fine whatever, everyone's gotta have an opinion right? But why hate the guy? Are you that jealous that this guy makes more money than you do?
Awww. *Kisses*
I smell a strawman, as well as someone of dubious intellect.
And, oh, what hope I had. Back in the heady days of BBS' and IRC (yes, BEFORE the multiple), all the way back to the golden dawn of the 14400 Baud modem. The first truly level playing field, without colour, creed or nationality, where the expression of the ideas mattered more than the voice expressing them, and within two decades, you've done what? Shat. All. Over. It.
First, the article itself. Though you could, perhaps, refer to it as a "line of thought" essay, it would more accurately be described as "verbal diarrhea". John, do you proof-read your work? Not a single working paragraph, nor even a completed idea. I spent half my time waiting for you to finish the first thought! Oh, now I remember: you first REAL thought was that this "Mookie" fellow was an idiot. That was after the pointless paragraph of redundant adjectives and cliche metaphors. Or did you say moron? I'm sorry, you reiterated that point so many times, I've forgotten if you said anything else. Let me check....oh, yes, you did call him a paedophile several dozen times. A little hung up on the concept, are we? As for the rest of it, support your arguments, would you? A half dozen links strewn over 3000 words would earn you a failing grade in ANY secondary education system, and I highly doubt that grade eight would qualify you to be anyone's critic. And, "Mookie's an idiot" for a thesis (once you got around to it)? Pathetic.
Now, to the comments section: there are, indeed, some of you who can adequately, even admirably, express yourselves. To those: quit wasting your time here. I'll admit right off, I could only get though half the comments before the nausea overcame me, and I skipped to the bottom. The "hurr, you iz idiot" doesn't bother me so much anymore (the years have taught me how to tune them out) - what really does is that Mr. Soloman feels the need to defend his own article in the comments? For shame, you hypocrite. Go stand in the corner with Mookie, until you grow the pair necessary to let your words stand on their own. While you're there, think on this: you haven't even ranked the "circle-jerking sycophants" that Mookie's managed to muster, so you have to do your shit-work yourself.
Lastly, the concept of this site: were it an honest critique of the more lacking recesses of the Internet, I would be most happy to join in the revelry. But, to infer from you title and style, let me tell you what this comes across as: John, you made a comic, didn't you? And it failed horribly, didn't it? It doesn't matter if I'm correct or not, the point is that this is how you come across: bitter, spiteful, and looking to excise your venom the only way you know how: spewing it out though a fiber optic cable. Here's a hint, John: life isn't pretty like in the picture books. People fail, things get ignored, no matter how good they were, then they slip into oblivion and are forgotten. Get a therapist, take up drinking, off yourself in a feeble attempt to emulate some famous dick-shit "artist". Couldn't give less of a fuck, just get off my internet.
Oh, and so you know: I don't read Dominic Deegan. Didn't really like the art after two pages, so I went on to something else.
Please forward all hate mail to lord_pyros66@hotmail.com
"lord_pyros66@hotmail.com"
Remember, folks. The internet belongs to teenage D&D players with Hotmail accounts. If they disapprove of you, you have to leave.
I am hilarious.
owned fukken owned
You say that your biggest problem with DD is Mookie. You say that you find Mookie extremely creepy for various reasons. I'm fine with your opinion, but I wish to attempt to clarify some things.
Let's start with something easy. You said you find a grown man going by a "pet name" like Mookie creepy and far to cutesy. From what I know it was a nickname in his highschool days and apparently it's stuck. Perhaps he likes it better then being called Michael. But I see no real problem with continuing to use a nick name that you kinda like in informal settings, which since it's his webcomic it's informal. If you still find it creepy that's fine, because that's your opinion. Having a different opinion is most certainly not a crime, and my opinion is in no way better then yours.
Moving on, you seem to have gotten the impression that Mookie simply can't stand any harsh criticism at all, and you find it strange that he put his comic on the internet when he can't stand anything bad to be said about it. In a more recent post Mookie specifically said that he's perfectly fine with people saying that his comic sucks, and people creating blogs and threads to say how much it sucks. He's fine with that, and he knows perfectly well that by putting his work online that he opens his work up for that sort of thing comepltely. He knows this fact, and is perfectly fine with that as well. However he most certainly did object to the personal attacks and paedophile comments. Honestly can you blame him for that? I'd imagine that, and I apologize in advance if this offends you, if I were to call you a stupid twat who likes to molest young boys that you would object to my comments as both false and highly offensive. I certainly know that I would be highly offended if similar comments were directed at me.
Now in reference to this particular comment
sunday said...
"I would at least have respect for the man if he took negative comments in stride and used to better his work. But he doesn't, he huffs and cries and deletes it then looks to his fans for sympathy. "
If you wish for proof that he doesn't just, "huffs and cries and deletes it", then please direct your attention to the keenspot forum, quite a few people there look at the day's comment and then proceed to rip it apart about how and why it was so terrible. If your statement was pefectly accurate then that forum would not have a link in the DD forum page. And yes Mookie does check that forum, because if he didn't then he would never have seen this "review."
As for the comments on the artwork, I have no issue on that. Mookie's art could be much better and realistically drawn and what not. It's better then anything I can drawn certainly, and yes my drawing is that bad, so the artwork doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't hinder my understanding of the comic, which it doesn't. You may simply have higher standards when it comes to that kind of thing, and of course that is also perfectly fine.
In conclusion, you're are perfectly free to have your own opinion and there isn't any particular reason for what I say to influence you, but I would kindly ask that you read it at the very least. Thank you for your time.
~David
WRONG! Your opinion is stupid and boring. "Mookie" is a ridiculous name for anyone except a stuffed animal. (Or a person in a stuffed animal costume.)
"he's perfectly fine with people saying that his comic sucks"
What kind of ridiculous comment is that to make? He's fine with it?
He can't fucking stop it. He may as well be fine with letting the sun rise in the morning.
"and of course that is also perfectly fine"
It's cute that you think it makes you more diplomatic to assure everyone that their opinion is fine.
My opinion is that you're an enormous tool. Is that fine by you?
God, I love the Internet.
No one here isn't saying it's harsh, it's crazy harsh. We have a guy here that hates things an awful lot and expresses them in a blunt and excessive manner. Personally, this kind of stuff makes me laugh. But a lot of it is bullshitting, you know? I've had one of my friends call me an elderly raping bull-dyke, I didn't take offense. I called him a douche and went on with my life. I know I don't rape homosexual elders, so why would I care? He was just being creative with his insults as opposed to yelling 'you're a sucky-suck-suck who sucks!'
It's not so much the fact he calls himself Mookie, but his personality. I'm sure he's a nice guy with puppy-dogs and rainbows coming out every orifice, but the overly cutesy stuff in some of his news updates just rubbed me the wrong way. It may have been just me, to each there own. Didn't make him any less of a creeper to me though.
Terracciano can at least take pride in the fact he created something so bad someone spent this much effort in hating it. I guess Terracciano doesn't know how to find a bright side to things either. I appreciate you're well thought out response David.
-sunday
First, I'll reiterate my opinion that I think you're selling Mookie short, but I also acknowledge that my opinion doesn't necesarily mean much of anything to you.
Second, thank you for worrying about me, but I'm honestly not to upset or bothered by most of this. Half the reason I felt like coming to the defense of Mookie and DD is because I honestly have nothing better to do. The other half is that I like Mookie, and I think DD is pretty decent as well. I'll not deny it's flaws, but then again what isn't flawed?
By the way, I'm glad you're not fragile enough to take such comments as anything but silly. It's just my habit to try to avoid offending people on general principle. I do think it's nice to have imaginative friends. It's certianly more interesting then friends without any imagination what so ever, at least when it comes to insults.
Oh, by the way malky I'm glad you're enjoying you're freedom of speech. Also feel free to say and think whatever you want about me, it's not like I care.
~David
~David
Cut it the fuck out. I don't, no, no one cares what you think or care about. You're not a fucking celebrity.
Just come up with some fucking content. Throw out some evidence to show that Dominic Deegan isn't total shit. Or come up with some evidence that it does. Or accuse me of being a self-righteous asshole who can barely form a coherent sentence with Solomon's cock so far down my throat. But for the love of God, you self-centered little brat, stop talking about yourself.
And if you wish for me to present reasons as to why I like DD that is quite simple. I sometimes enjoy puns, and I'm an occasional punner myself. I also find the characters amusing. An example character is Spark. While you may despise him and his alliteration, I find him amusing. Now you may say that there is no evidence to any of that, but guess what? What a person likes is largely based on their preferences or opinions. My opinion is that DD is a decently amusing comic. If it isn't being amusing then it's usually at the very least marginally interesting. Also I'll note that the only real difference between a fact and an opinion is that facts have hard evidence to support it. Opinions are relitive and can widely differ depending on the people being compared.
Now you may rant that my opinion matters to absolutely no one, but I can say with certainty that you're wrong on that mark. Because I care about my own opinion, and I have enough self esteem and backbone to not back down if someone yells at me for my opinions. If you wonder why you have to hear all of this if I'm the only one who cares that is quite simple. This is the internet.
Have a nice day Malky.
~David
P.S. No, I won't accuse or insult you even if you ask so don't bother asking again.
Now stop fucking talking about yourself.
Because we don't really care what each other thinks. Oh, and by the way? I'm not even going so far as to actually call you obnoxious, simply because I don't care enough to find you obnoxious.
Though I'd kindly ask you to make more of a point then merely saying I fail. Please find evidence and use quotes so that I have something worth arguing against. Because after all you thinking I failed is your opinion. And since I can't argue with an opinion please find something more substantial to try and refute me with. Oh, by the way I did have a rather lengthy post somewhere in there addressing various points John made against the comic so feel free to hunt through that while you look for quotes to use against me.
~David
Maybe three people found this funny. Everyone else just thinks you're stupid--so what was the point? Why did you decide to write this up and post it publicly?
QUIT. FUCKING. POSTING.
The man is obviously just trying to be offensive, and every hateful comment you post is just adding to the little attention-whoring orgy he's so masterfully set up. So just stop it. Move on. Find something better to do. It's not going to help, he's just enjoying it.
~David
~David
~David
are you talking about dominic deegan or the article here? (did you see what i did there?)
by the way, I found this to be highly entertaining. I've never even read DD but once or twice and i still found this article to be incredibly entertaining. good job Solomon, just maybe try not to make sweeping generalizations like everyone who likes this is a moron.... I'm sure theres at least one person who thinks its a genius satire of crappy anime everywhere...
seriously it seems like DD is inuyasha for people who think the world needs more inuyasha (which it doesn't)
and fuck off 'david' it doesn't matter how polite you are if all you do is jerk yourself off all day about how polite you are. in fact by doing this you are being more impolite than everyone else here, as it is an impoliteness of deeds rather than the surface impoliteness of curse words and calling you a faggot.
heh i bet he'll comment here at least one more time
Firstly let me compliment you on figuring out that my politeness was just a verneer. I don't think everyone here could have figured that out on their own.
Secondly, I still have to argue that john's posts are still more impolite than I, even if we go off of "impoliteness of deeds." Mostly because he made unfounded personally attacks upon Mookie, simply because he could. Calling someone a paedophile, and meaning it, is much less polite then my disagreeing with people and sometimes only pretnding to be polite.
Though I will note that I believe john's comments are trivalising paedophilia a bit. And when I refer to paeodophilia I mean the act of molesting or raping children. As far as I know that is considering worse then rape.
~David
Sort yourself out John.
~David
Though I will admit that was a pretty decent comeback, good job.
~David
Maddox himself is funny, but the reactions to him that faggots like you have is just fucking priceless.
I thought the point of fantasy was MAKING SHIT UP and being original, rather than copying the hell out of shit other people made up.
I mean, seriously, you guys think it's IMPOSSIBLE to make up new races? I did that shit all the time in high school.
It's not like there's a law of the genre saying "ALL FANTASY MUST USE ORCS AND THEY MUST BE RECOGNISABLE AS THE D&D STYLE TOLKEIN RIPOFF SHIT THAT EVERYONE USES THESE DAYS."
does sitting around reading webcomics you obiouvsly hate do something for you? Do you get money in the mail? Free college funds? Girlfriends?
It's fine not to like something and its fine to talk about it. But you don't have to go out trying to rip his fans into shreds.
People like what they like. You need to get a new hobby- something productive.
I know! why don't you try creating your own web comic. I'm sure its golden.
Like piss.
By the way, I'm pretty sure we don't need your fucking insight. Those who hate Dominic Deegan already knows why it sucks and those who read Dominic Deegan will continue to read it. And I'm pretty sure theres no entertainment value in reading a dumbshit like you bitching about small time webcomics. You fail.
You are the lowest form of pathetic. You out of all people need to die in a fire. I hope your soul dangles from the very bowels of Satan himself.
And so far as your personal attempt at alliteration...might I suggest "in lieu of anything at all amusing!" ?
Sort yourself out John.
Wah wah wah. It's called a metaphor, you dumb shit.
Like link said, "Freedom of speech"
"Why yes, that 14-year-old orc poon appears to be freshly violated. Good job."
A bunch of people think DD is a man with a stuffed animal's name smearing animu excrement all over their precious internet.
Another bunch of people think 'Mookie' is an amazing, well accomplished writer, who's drawing style has improved considerably over the space of time he has been making DD.
Soloman doesn't give a crap what either of these bunches of people think, and likes to make cheap shots, mixed with coherent opinions.
The comedy value of this page is through the roof
Maddox is not funny on his own; if there were no hyper-offended fags to bawl at him, there would be no Maddox, the twisted attention he gets is what he lives for, no matter what he tells you.
Bravo John Soloman, you prince among angry [angsty]bloggers, bravo.
However, if u are looking for support from anyone with a worthwhile opinion you lose it straight away. This is done by your ability to narrow in on one part of a webcomic (im going general here as i assume u do the same for each of these "reviews". I would read the rest of them but I'd like to believe that the world isnt filled with hate) and just insulting the creator on it. Now that might not make much sense, but i'm trying to fight fire with fire here.
Take, for example the part about the artists drawing skill. You say he is a bad writer and then u rant and rave for 4 WHOLE paragraphs about how he is a peodophile and whatnot, BEFORE getting to the why. It just corrupts your argument because rational people need reasons before they randomly start to hate things/people.
However, I did like the bit about the art, haha u sure nailed him there... him... expressing himself the way he wants to. BULLSEYE. Honestly webcomics aren't of constant quality. Thats what makes them so damn interesting! If the ones you like are all super high grade quality then u are missing ou t on some fantastic webcomics. www.xkcd.com for example. Its a webcomic for smart people, oh and u have to have a sense of humour too...
Then u get into his fan club and start insulting them. I dont really know why, i mean this is a review of the comic surely not the creator or the ones that enjoy to read it. That will lower your credibility again as anyone with a brain can see that you are just pandering for attention.
It becomes obvious that u dont give a damn who reads your blog, you just want attention. Using as many big insults as u can to draw in a mindless mob to support you, because, to be honest, anyone that doesnt like DD is going to agree with u on principle. They MIGHT agree with your points, when they can eventually find them, but i doubt they would go to the lengths of hatred u do. To wish this man would die is just uneccesary.
Now I dont expect this to change your opinion on anything, god I dont even care, and i personally cant imagine you give a damn about what i say.
But this is freedom of speech so i just wanted to tell you how wrong u are. :D Lighten up, see things for how they are, not for what u want them to be. I hope u arent like this in real life...
Oh and if i was you I would either reevaluate your position in life, whether or not its worth the time to slam good and bad webcomics. Oooor make people pay to come here.. cos u have a money maker for all the idiots out there who love to hate.
But on the other hand, I have a real weakness for puns, which practically by definition are absolute shit. Like, from a butt.
Aw, let's face it. I'm only here for the sarcasm and lame accusations of being a twelve year old to justify why you're wrong.
It's lines like this that make me love you.
But thanks, I guess?
May I fellate you Solomon?
Hmmm... leme see if I understand your argument, John.
1. The comic's art is not perfect when you look at it, you can tell that it is a comic, not a photograph, and thus it sucks.
2. The art style was unorigional. Which is like saying that a movie is onorigional because they used the same model of cameras that another movie did. However through clever use of swear words you proved that it sucks.
3. Dispite the fact that he did change the art from this: (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2002-05-21) to this: (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2007-08-22) it was not an "improvement". It was merely an "upgrade". Dispite beeing synonomous, it isn't.
4. The webcomic uses unorigional races, such as humans, cats and orcs. This clearly shows that the author is a lazy shameless thief. Also, he should have his characters speak through pantomime since English is used in too many webcomics already and therefor cliche.
5. The protagonist is always Right and anyone who says otherwise is Wrong in the comic. Completely unlike how you are always right about crappy webcomics, and everyone who says otherwise is a f-ing moron. Completely unlike, right?
6. The comic doesn't make you laugh. It's not humor driven, and so it sucks. The only good comics are those that are funny.
Now before anyone says otherwise, I would like to note that I did read your entire rant. I commend you on your fantastic way with words that puts you on par with the Angry Video Game Nerd and those dudes who can convince people to buy insurence at 1% rates with a clause that says you have a right to change it to 15% if they feel like it. However much like the aformentioned Nerd, you let unsavory language spoil your argument. You also tend to overuse the "I'm right, your wrong, suck it!" argument, which you so often accuse others of hiding behind.
In closing: I find that you are a good writer wasting your skills on open ended debates that have no affect on anyone. Haters still hate, and lovers still love. Perhaps you should also post links to webcomics that you do like; enlighten us to better comics so we may see the flaws in our own. Or better yet write this "perfect webcomic".
-Jay
Learn some fucking subtlety, then maybe all the time you spend writing out these long-winded comments might not be rendered pointless because of your massive ineptitude.
I'd like to agree with Jay, that your reasons for hating the webcomic are pulled out of a pile of shit that you can use for any possible comic, movie, etc. Also, if your response is "You're a fucking troll," you're never holding the torch in the argument.
I like Deegan. I don't know why, but I found it when I was about 13 and 4 years later I enjoy checking up on it every once in a while. I like Jurassic Park too, and I've seen it about a month ago; I don't really give a shit if you whine about something that I discovered years and years ago. So I salute you for whining and think you should go on.
in all its vulgar, unforgiving glory.
But I just wanted to tell you that "so bad you'd think it was hosted on an ancient Indian burial ground" was incredibly fucking funny. Yay you, have a cookie.
Solomon, you're an asshat, buy you're also funny and this is the internet so good for you.
myself: Orphan hate rally at 5p.m. Sunday
whoever it was that said "hahaahaahaha! seriously! You fail so hard! So hard it could fuck concrete!" and other *ahem* jewels like that...
LEARN SOME BETTER FUCKING INSULTS
every time you use "fail" in such a serious context, an orphan baby whale is slaughtered and sold to Western Sizzlin' to make steak tips.
I personally hope whatever Yaoi demon shit you fap to jumps out of your computer, whips out a dick the size of his leg, and beats you to death with it, because that is the only death fitting for a douchebag of your magnitude (also, that's how I get off)
Artistically, yeah. A lot could be improved on, and should be, considering how long he's been working on the damn comic. But it stems from finding a simple style that 'works' and acting on a lazy streak. So, while this certainly gave me some ideas to chew on, I'll still be reading it. Thanks for the review- it was definately a fun read.
that video?
I mean, you must have read more than 1000 strips just to get to the child rape part. You sure you read all these just for the sake of critizicing a webcomic? You should get another hobby instead of reading 1000 strips of a comic you don't like
You're a sad, sad person that simply has nothing to do but vent vile hatred and rage.
I'm not going to go into a big speech to defend Mookie and Dominic Deegan. Because you simply won't listen, your point of view is set and won't change.
I just want you to know the only thing this blog taught me about you is you're a small man that hides behind big words.
But yeah, Deegan sucks.
It's garbage.
sigh... now I'm gonna get bashed by other DD lovers for not comparing you to a baby killer. Oh well...
It's the fucking alliteration that always drove me insane. It was obnoxious, intensely unfunny, overused, and above all, stupid. It made the characters sound forced and unrealistic, like they had never actually used the English language in their entire lives.
I can take a lot, but for some reason I can't fuckin' stand alliteration. Maybe it's because only shitty writers who can't write anything funny use the stupid shit.
I will not argue with your points, find myself incapable of doing so, in fact. All I wish to say is this: keep up the good work!
Your points are valid, and I can appreciate you offering examples of the comics you are bashing. All this, wrapped in a shell of humor. If ever I should be criticised, I should hope it by a person such as you. I want to laugh at my own criticism, and be able to say, "You got me there" between chuckles.
Again, I reiterate, keep up the good work!
And it had less orc rape.
Reading your review, I'm not sure if what you say is true, so I'll keep an eye out from now on when I read the comic. I still like the webcomic. I don't know why, I just do. I don't look in the forum or any other place Mookie has set up, because I don't really care. I just like reading the webcomic (again, I don't know why).
It entertains me, and that's all I guess. I don't expect anything from it, especially nothing artistic (literary or otherwise).
If you want to call me a drooling ass monkey without a real thought in his head except for "Dominic Deegan is a good webcomic," go ahead, if it makes you feel good about yourself, I don't really care.
For some reason, I get the feeling that you write reviews just to piss people off. Something about how you write, at least to me, makes it sound as if you're just an angry man with nothing better to do.
Again, I'm not sure how accurate your review is, and so I'll start looking at DD with a more critical eye, but... fuck, I don't think I ever actually had a point in this.
Oh well.
--Yeah... I should really re-read these things before just posting. of course, if I did, I'd probably erase the whole thing, so yah... whatever... (Man I wish I indented the paragraphs... honestly it looks like a 12-yr old retard who loves the comic typed it... Oh SHI-)
and this comment is pointless, since John Solomon is gone forever and we'll never have funny reviewers again...except maybe Zero Punctuation
Maybe that makes me an idiot, but I genuinely enjoy reading this comic.
Deegan is a perfect example of why critics tend to hate fantasy literature. With a VERY few rare exceptions, it is derivative as shit, written by lazy authors who blatantly rip off D&D / Rowling / Anne Rice. Most fantasy, even published fantasy, is poorly disguised fan fiction. And when the sources are that mediocre to begin with, the second-rate ripoffs are inevitably going to be crap. I WRITE fantasy -- and no I do not mean ff.com, nor do I mean a webcomic. But I make a conscious effort to create my own universe rather than derive it from someone else's. It is hard to do, and that is why truly good fantasy is so rare. People like Mookie are a personal affront to me, because the turds that they crap out and proudly arrange on the Internet make the entire genre look awful. They don't even TRY, for they are so secure in their belief that their shit doesn't stink. The only reason I can give for this is that they live in a shitpile and are used to the stench by now. If your creative inspirations come from derivative D&D pulp novels, computer games, and anime, then I suppose you can't help but produce shit because you have no concept of quality storytelling.
Deegan has nothing original in it at all. It is a badly-stitched-together mishmash of D&Dverse and the modern West. You have powerful noblemen and warrior knights alongside superhero comic books and rock concerts, the latter of which are definitely created by "magic" and the former of which are probably created in the same way, as there is no suggestion of nonmagical automation. A village tailor in one country and a mass-production plushie store in another one -- once again, with no infrastructure for mass production except "magic." Simple horse-drawn carts... and magic-propelled luxury flying vehicles. Memo to Mookie: THIS DOES NOT WORK! Read some history for once and you'll understand why.
Let me guess, Mookie -- you defend this by claiming that it's a "fun twist" or a "unique touch." You might even have told yourself that until you believed your own bullshit, but I am onto you. You stuck KEWL THINGZ in your story without considering what kind of technology (even the "magic" variety) would be necessary to create them, or what that would actually do to a pseudomedieval world. The advent of mass production, particularly of books, is a major reason why modern society came to be, but you, Mookie, are a lazy little shit who not only have no knowledge of history, but clearly have not given more than two seconds of thought to what Deeganland "magic" even is. There's so much schlock fantasy that this is often ignored, but magic is a very tricky plot element to use in a medieval setting because its very nature is to improve technology (and with it, the society itself). That is why the author must either throw out the medieval setting or establish logically consistent limits for what the magic can do. Otherwise you have Deeganland -- a world with the social, political, and nonmagic technological advancement of the late Middle Ages, but with outlandish magically produced anachronisms sprinkled around as the author finds convenient. The D&D creators set rules for magic, and even JDR understands that technological improvements change the culture. Mookie doesn't try, and the result is the equivalent of pepperoni pizza with some ice creams on top: two flavors that simply do not coexist.
The characters themselves are black or white. Whenever it looks like Mookie may be going for a grey character, he decides instead to turn that character either entirely evil or entirely good, and "good" is defined, invariably, by what the Deegans and their friends say it is, no matter whether that is actually a reasonable definition of "good." Behavior that any reasonable person would regard as "evil" is justified or ignored in order to prevent a grey character from being created. For example, in the current arc, a friend of Dominic's is revealed to have hit his wife, but when the wife comes on the scene, Mookie writes her so unpleasant that you're supposed to think "well she had it coming; he couldn't help himself." What's more, Mookie makes her into the villain for refusing to forgive him for it. It's a perfect echo of the orc rape storyline, wherein you're supposed to support the rapist because he is a friend of Dominic's, he just couldn't help himself, and those who won't forgive it are Bad. It is bad enough when a story has no characters except wholly good and wholly evil ones, but the twisting of morality to force grey characters to be either good or evil is a hundred times worse. What it indicates is that Mookie is a self-righteous idiot who sees Dominic as his avatar. He does not want to have a flawed character for Dommie's friend -- after all, if Dommie Stu has imperfect friends, he (and therefore Mookie) might be imperfect himself -- so he denies the existence of the flaws. Likewise, he does not want characters who dislike Dommie Stu to have any redeeming traits, so he either converts them to the Good News of Dominism or he turns them Ebil. There is literally NOT ONE CHARACTER in the ENTIRE COMIC who is allowed to be "good" without also being/becoming on good terms with Dommie Stu. Being a decent person while disliking that obnoxious wretch of a character is not possible. Honestly, Mookie. Grow the fuck up, you sanctimonious, egotistical little bastard.
Oh, why am I bothering. Mookie sees no reason to improve because his fan base laps up whatever he puts out. So I will address this plea instead to them: READ A REAL FANTASY NOVEL. Even a well-reviewed graphic novel. Turn off the anime, exit the WoW, put down the godawful pulp novels, and expose your mind to something of quality, so that you will be capable of discerning just how bottom-of-the-barrel Deegan truly is. Give your time and money to good authors, not this pathetic little douchebag who would not know quality if his miserable life depended on it.