You can tell if a webcomic is bad very simply. It's bad if it has three exclamation marks in its title. But that doesn't mean I won't be going all-out on the bad webcomic that is College Roomies from Hell!!!
CRFH, as I'll be calling from now on because I have a certain standard of self-respect, began all the way back on January 1st, 1999. I'm fairly sure that this may have been the babbling, incoherent disaster that Nostrodamus may or may not have foretold in his jumbled works that could mean absolutely anything whatsoever. Because this shit is catastrophic in its badness. CRFH belongs on the same level as Sluggy Freelance, Dominic Deegan, Pastel Defender Heliotrope, Ctrl-Alt-Del and Megatokyo. It is the slime at the bottom of the Internet barrel, and by God it is unredeemable.
During the first few comics, the incompetent dullard responsible (one Maritza Campos) shows off the kind of level she'll be abandoning shortly in favour of something worse. If you can ignore the cross-eyed, gibbon-armed scribbles that are supposedly some variety of people, we can see the kind of amazing story and dialogue that will bore the tears out of everyone for the next eight years. It begins with an explosion! An explosion that isn't shown on panel, off panel, but vaguely referenced. Yes, Campos is actually incapable of writing the word "KABOOM" in big, bold letters at this point. She also thinks "destinated" is a word. Know that this truly is the high point of the webcomic. I'm not kidding.
A little later, she proves herself to be perhaps forty or fifty years old by assuming that college stoners wear peace-sign necklaces, headbands and look like John Lennon if he was drawn by someone without any artistic talent. In a few more strips she shows to be moving into territory that will later be conquered by El Goonish Shive, but I've had enough of this shit. Let's move on.
Skipping a year ahead shows us that three new characters have been introduced, and it is painfully obvious that they're colour-coded for convenience. Not really our convenience, no. Campos' convenience, because nothing says "twoo wuv" like ensuring the purity of one's race by matching hair colours. Still, the art's a little better, perhaps, but still a little shitty. Nothing in terms of backgrounds, identical body types that are not only copy-pasted but also drawn badly anyway. Dialogue's phrased like no Earthly conversation, with horrendous bubble and text placement. The font is still the same, and still as irritating... I think this is a fairly good example, actually, of how you shouldn't do a fucking webcomic.
But it goes on. It gets worse.
Shitty photoshop filters, anyone? But that's just the art. If you concentrate on the story, as painful as that is, you come across new peaks of terrible writing as Campos the intrepid hack attempts to scale Mount Worst Webcomic.
Dave, aka "brown-haired guy", gets his soul stolen by the Devil. Now, considering this storyline kicked off with the majority of the main cast tripping balls in a way that only someone who has never even read about drug use could depict, you may be forgiven in thinking this is some hallucination. But it's not. The Devil is a recurring character, and possibly the worst portrayal of said incarnation of evil that I have ever seen. Because it's not even all that evil. You see, Campos is incapable of writing sinister dialogue. The Devil speaks like he belongs on an episode of Superfriends, except he talks about souls and useless wank like that. Though I ignored the fact he was a talking cow, I still couldn't feel one iota of menace in his words. The fact of the matter is, taking away the subject in question (souls and the taking thereof), the Devil talks exactly like everyone else. Which is to say, he speaks like a college student. Except he's a cow. This is another of Campos' major failings: being unable to give her characters a proper voice.
This is a flaw... well, more of a grievous lack of talent, really... that many forever-amateur hack writers possess. All the webcomics I listed earlier as being on the same level as CRFH? They do it too. They have a whole cast of characters who talk exactly like each other, and the manner in which they talk is exactly how the webcomic jerk talks. I suppose some people can be baffled and say "But this guy is sarcastic and this guy is wacky!" But no, they're stupid, that's why they're baffled. Anyone who needs to be a particular way all the time (sarcastic, wacky, angry, etc.) in order to have a "voice" has no voice at all. A character's voice is the way that they speak and act at all times, covering a range of emotions, moods and situations. CRFH doesn't have that, and probably never will. It is a living testament to shitty writing, I can't imagine it ever getting better.
Anyway, like most webcomics that start off aiming for jokes, CRFH dives into drama as fast as it possibly can. Whereas mere strips ago they were doing something that may resemble humour in a dim light, the loss of Dave's soul is treated with the kind of weepy schlock-sentimentalism that you can expect from atrocious hacks like Campos. Oh no, a running gag has managed to conjure up some evil so great that this guy (who I and the reader know nothing about) is dying! A BLOO BLOO BLOO. Ugh, please. Nobody's going to be giving a shit about Dave kicking the bucket, unless they're so over-emotional they break into tears when the newsreader says "Goodnight". Also she can't spell "negotiate" but I guess that's a mild step up from inventing words like "destinated". Webcomic jerks of the world, there are dictionaries that are online. Find one and use it. Or better yet, don't drop out of English in the fourth grade, you fucking morons.
The Devil - much as I loathe to term him, for who can seriously be afraid of a bipedal cow in a black sheet - is defeated by shotgun after some more mawkish dialogue. Wonderful layout there, putting two separate strips side-by-side like that. It took me a moment to realise it wasn't one double-sized strip. My word, Maritza Campos, if it isn't all the little touches that make me want to reach through the screen and just strangle you for your crimes.
CRFH is the kind of webcomic you simply can't read, unless you've been tagging along for years like some kind of sad little puppy, or you're as persistent as you are dim. There's just drama, drama, drama everywhere you look. You've got a bunch of utterly two-dimensional characters who operate only as stupid gimmicks spouting out a lot of utterly fucking awful lines about relationships and all that crap. Campos either never watches any TV shows about teen drama, or she's just that fucking bad. I'm going for the latter.
Like a lot of hacks, she assumes that things happening to a character is equal to characterisation. Everyone gets superpowers, someone turns out to be a werewolf - sorry, werecoyote. Because that's so fresh and interesting! Wait, no it's not. Even ignoring the fact that coyotes and wolves are so closely related they're capable of interbreeding, it's still fucking stupid as fuck. Your great idea for a big shocking backstory is to make someone a closet furry? Been. Done. Still, I guess one can't blame Campos for cribbing extensively from other sources in order to get her Frankenstein on and get that modern Prometheus lurching down the road to go throw little girls in streams. What one can do is blame her for being so fucking shit at it.
I know that most of you don't want to read eight years of CRFH to find out how bad it all is, even if you got paid. Although I don't get paid either, so I don't know why I'm doing it. Probably because if I don't do it, no one will, and the only representation CRFH will get is Bobby Tangents and his undue praise. Just read those so-called reviews, they're hilarious. You'd never even guess that Bobby's trying to get into a certain webcomic creator's pants! But what's most entertaining is him going on and on about all this characterisation that apparently happened in the comic when I wasn't looking. No, sorry Bobby, but there isn't any. The characters haven't grown one metaphorical inch since day one. What they do is whine continuously about all the shit that's happened to them. Or cry in the rain. You see, it's all drama. As much as webcomic jerks would want you to believe that drama = character depth, it's just not fucking true. Just because a character's gone through some tough times involving a talking cow and some other shit that just doesn't match up to a talking cow, that doesn't mean they're a deeper character.
What does make a deeper character? Well, knowing that character would be nice. Not all the things that happened to them a few hundred strips ago, but who they are. Stuff that makes them seem more human. Try describing any of these characters without referring to things which primarily took place in the webcomic and you'll hit a bit of a stumbling block. You'll find out that they aren't as "deep" as you though. Then take out references to physical appearance, hobbies and relationships and I guarantee you that you will not top twenty words.
This all comes back to character voice. Character voice is very important when you're doing soap opera shit like this. In fact it's hard to conceive of someone who wants to do soap opera shit but apparently hasn't watched nearly enough soaps to understand that simple fact. People are different, fucko. I shouldn't be able to take nearly any strip in your archives where two people are having an everyday conversation, swap around their dialogue and still have it work perfectly. There's any number of webcomics that do that, and guess what? They're all as fucking shit as CRFH.
The best part is that according to Wikipedia, this shit's won awards for this writing. In 2001 it managed to win Best Writing and Best Serial Comic, and in 2003 it won Outstanding Character Development. This would be a travesty... if it wasn't for the fact these are the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards, which is just an extension of the usual simpering circlejerk that the webcomics "community" is. You never have to say anything good about yourself, simply harp on about how good everyone else is and that praise will be heaped back upon you in turn.
To demonstrate how worthless and removed from reality these awards are, let me demonstrate with some more winners. In 2001, Best Female Character went to Monique from Sinfest. A character introduced one year before. Into a gag-strip webcomic that actually is a gag-strip webcomic and not an excuse to have people cry in the rain like CRFH. Where all she did for one year is talk about boys, clothes, shopping and perhaps a few other things. For the purpose of three-panel jokes. That was the best female character that 2001 could produce, apparently.
Still not convinced? Best Reality-Based Comic of that year went to Real Life. Sure, reality-based. Despite having time-travel, giant robots, a supervillain and a variety of other shit, it's won that category again and again. But here's the nail in the coffin, folks. In 2002, Best Comic was judged to be Megatokyo. It also won Best Writing, Best Serial Comic and Best Dramatic Comic. If you won't accept the WCCA as pure shit now, you never will.
Back to CRFH and what a gigantic pile of shit it is. Let's cover a few topics simply: Campos can't draw noses (or attractive women). Campos uses too many speech bubbles (and too much retarded dialogue). Campos can't use speech bubbles properly anyway (hello talking cat). Campos thinks a cow shooting lightning is actually intimidating. Campos draws sunglasses as gaping holes into eternity where the eyes should be. Campos loves copying and pasting. A lot. Campos believes using pattern fills is fine.
In fact I could take a trundle through the whole archives and find flaws everywhere I look. I'm sure some of you are whining that flaws don't matter and it's the whole product that I should be looking at, but when all I can see in every fucking strip is flaw after flaw... that is the whole fuckin' product. I've read the vast majority of the archives, only skimming through the boring parts... okay, it's all boring, so I guess I mean the useless shit at the start that nobody cares about. But I have looked through it all, and the idea that people not only read this shit on a daily basis, but actually like it to boot... well, I probably would be more shocked if I didn't know that a lot of people who read webcomics are pretty dumb and easily entertained.
So, College Roomies from Hell!!! - one bad webcomic. One seriously terrible webcomic. One utter fucking waste of everything conceivable. If there truly is a talking cow out there, wrapped up in a black sheet and making like the Emperor in Jedi, then I ask of him this: destroy this shitty webcomic and the useless hack responsible. I realise that this would be an act of good, and your bovine nature would reject it so, but consider all the fans willing to sell their souls to get back their daily fix of banal drama. Their scabby little souls, covered in acne and Cheeto dust. Isn't that worth it, Mr. Cow?
Oh yeah, I forgot, that means you'd get the soul of Bobby Tangents. Yikes. Well, maybe you can turn him down or something.
CRFH, as I'll be calling from now on because I have a certain standard of self-respect, began all the way back on January 1st, 1999. I'm fairly sure that this may have been the babbling, incoherent disaster that Nostrodamus may or may not have foretold in his jumbled works that could mean absolutely anything whatsoever. Because this shit is catastrophic in its badness. CRFH belongs on the same level as Sluggy Freelance, Dominic Deegan, Pastel Defender Heliotrope, Ctrl-Alt-Del and Megatokyo. It is the slime at the bottom of the Internet barrel, and by God it is unredeemable.
During the first few comics, the incompetent dullard responsible (one Maritza Campos) shows off the kind of level she'll be abandoning shortly in favour of something worse. If you can ignore the cross-eyed, gibbon-armed scribbles that are supposedly some variety of people, we can see the kind of amazing story and dialogue that will bore the tears out of everyone for the next eight years. It begins with an explosion! An explosion that isn't shown on panel, off panel, but vaguely referenced. Yes, Campos is actually incapable of writing the word "KABOOM" in big, bold letters at this point. She also thinks "destinated" is a word. Know that this truly is the high point of the webcomic. I'm not kidding.
A little later, she proves herself to be perhaps forty or fifty years old by assuming that college stoners wear peace-sign necklaces, headbands and look like John Lennon if he was drawn by someone without any artistic talent. In a few more strips she shows to be moving into territory that will later be conquered by El Goonish Shive, but I've had enough of this shit. Let's move on.
Skipping a year ahead shows us that three new characters have been introduced, and it is painfully obvious that they're colour-coded for convenience. Not really our convenience, no. Campos' convenience, because nothing says "twoo wuv" like ensuring the purity of one's race by matching hair colours. Still, the art's a little better, perhaps, but still a little shitty. Nothing in terms of backgrounds, identical body types that are not only copy-pasted but also drawn badly anyway. Dialogue's phrased like no Earthly conversation, with horrendous bubble and text placement. The font is still the same, and still as irritating... I think this is a fairly good example, actually, of how you shouldn't do a fucking webcomic.
But it goes on. It gets worse.
Shitty photoshop filters, anyone? But that's just the art. If you concentrate on the story, as painful as that is, you come across new peaks of terrible writing as Campos the intrepid hack attempts to scale Mount Worst Webcomic.
Dave, aka "brown-haired guy", gets his soul stolen by the Devil. Now, considering this storyline kicked off with the majority of the main cast tripping balls in a way that only someone who has never even read about drug use could depict, you may be forgiven in thinking this is some hallucination. But it's not. The Devil is a recurring character, and possibly the worst portrayal of said incarnation of evil that I have ever seen. Because it's not even all that evil. You see, Campos is incapable of writing sinister dialogue. The Devil speaks like he belongs on an episode of Superfriends, except he talks about souls and useless wank like that. Though I ignored the fact he was a talking cow, I still couldn't feel one iota of menace in his words. The fact of the matter is, taking away the subject in question (souls and the taking thereof), the Devil talks exactly like everyone else. Which is to say, he speaks like a college student. Except he's a cow. This is another of Campos' major failings: being unable to give her characters a proper voice.
This is a flaw... well, more of a grievous lack of talent, really... that many forever-amateur hack writers possess. All the webcomics I listed earlier as being on the same level as CRFH? They do it too. They have a whole cast of characters who talk exactly like each other, and the manner in which they talk is exactly how the webcomic jerk talks. I suppose some people can be baffled and say "But this guy is sarcastic and this guy is wacky!" But no, they're stupid, that's why they're baffled. Anyone who needs to be a particular way all the time (sarcastic, wacky, angry, etc.) in order to have a "voice" has no voice at all. A character's voice is the way that they speak and act at all times, covering a range of emotions, moods and situations. CRFH doesn't have that, and probably never will. It is a living testament to shitty writing, I can't imagine it ever getting better.
Anyway, like most webcomics that start off aiming for jokes, CRFH dives into drama as fast as it possibly can. Whereas mere strips ago they were doing something that may resemble humour in a dim light, the loss of Dave's soul is treated with the kind of weepy schlock-sentimentalism that you can expect from atrocious hacks like Campos. Oh no, a running gag has managed to conjure up some evil so great that this guy (who I and the reader know nothing about) is dying! A BLOO BLOO BLOO. Ugh, please. Nobody's going to be giving a shit about Dave kicking the bucket, unless they're so over-emotional they break into tears when the newsreader says "Goodnight". Also she can't spell "negotiate" but I guess that's a mild step up from inventing words like "destinated". Webcomic jerks of the world, there are dictionaries that are online. Find one and use it. Or better yet, don't drop out of English in the fourth grade, you fucking morons.
The Devil - much as I loathe to term him, for who can seriously be afraid of a bipedal cow in a black sheet - is defeated by shotgun after some more mawkish dialogue. Wonderful layout there, putting two separate strips side-by-side like that. It took me a moment to realise it wasn't one double-sized strip. My word, Maritza Campos, if it isn't all the little touches that make me want to reach through the screen and just strangle you for your crimes.
CRFH is the kind of webcomic you simply can't read, unless you've been tagging along for years like some kind of sad little puppy, or you're as persistent as you are dim. There's just drama, drama, drama everywhere you look. You've got a bunch of utterly two-dimensional characters who operate only as stupid gimmicks spouting out a lot of utterly fucking awful lines about relationships and all that crap. Campos either never watches any TV shows about teen drama, or she's just that fucking bad. I'm going for the latter.
Like a lot of hacks, she assumes that things happening to a character is equal to characterisation. Everyone gets superpowers, someone turns out to be a werewolf - sorry, werecoyote. Because that's so fresh and interesting! Wait, no it's not. Even ignoring the fact that coyotes and wolves are so closely related they're capable of interbreeding, it's still fucking stupid as fuck. Your great idea for a big shocking backstory is to make someone a closet furry? Been. Done. Still, I guess one can't blame Campos for cribbing extensively from other sources in order to get her Frankenstein on and get that modern Prometheus lurching down the road to go throw little girls in streams. What one can do is blame her for being so fucking shit at it.
I know that most of you don't want to read eight years of CRFH to find out how bad it all is, even if you got paid. Although I don't get paid either, so I don't know why I'm doing it. Probably because if I don't do it, no one will, and the only representation CRFH will get is Bobby Tangents and his undue praise. Just read those so-called reviews, they're hilarious. You'd never even guess that Bobby's trying to get into a certain webcomic creator's pants! But what's most entertaining is him going on and on about all this characterisation that apparently happened in the comic when I wasn't looking. No, sorry Bobby, but there isn't any. The characters haven't grown one metaphorical inch since day one. What they do is whine continuously about all the shit that's happened to them. Or cry in the rain. You see, it's all drama. As much as webcomic jerks would want you to believe that drama = character depth, it's just not fucking true. Just because a character's gone through some tough times involving a talking cow and some other shit that just doesn't match up to a talking cow, that doesn't mean they're a deeper character.
What does make a deeper character? Well, knowing that character would be nice. Not all the things that happened to them a few hundred strips ago, but who they are. Stuff that makes them seem more human. Try describing any of these characters without referring to things which primarily took place in the webcomic and you'll hit a bit of a stumbling block. You'll find out that they aren't as "deep" as you though. Then take out references to physical appearance, hobbies and relationships and I guarantee you that you will not top twenty words.
This all comes back to character voice. Character voice is very important when you're doing soap opera shit like this. In fact it's hard to conceive of someone who wants to do soap opera shit but apparently hasn't watched nearly enough soaps to understand that simple fact. People are different, fucko. I shouldn't be able to take nearly any strip in your archives where two people are having an everyday conversation, swap around their dialogue and still have it work perfectly. There's any number of webcomics that do that, and guess what? They're all as fucking shit as CRFH.
The best part is that according to Wikipedia, this shit's won awards for this writing. In 2001 it managed to win Best Writing and Best Serial Comic, and in 2003 it won Outstanding Character Development. This would be a travesty... if it wasn't for the fact these are the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards, which is just an extension of the usual simpering circlejerk that the webcomics "community" is. You never have to say anything good about yourself, simply harp on about how good everyone else is and that praise will be heaped back upon you in turn.
To demonstrate how worthless and removed from reality these awards are, let me demonstrate with some more winners. In 2001, Best Female Character went to Monique from Sinfest. A character introduced one year before. Into a gag-strip webcomic that actually is a gag-strip webcomic and not an excuse to have people cry in the rain like CRFH. Where all she did for one year is talk about boys, clothes, shopping and perhaps a few other things. For the purpose of three-panel jokes. That was the best female character that 2001 could produce, apparently.
Still not convinced? Best Reality-Based Comic of that year went to Real Life. Sure, reality-based. Despite having time-travel, giant robots, a supervillain and a variety of other shit, it's won that category again and again. But here's the nail in the coffin, folks. In 2002, Best Comic was judged to be Megatokyo. It also won Best Writing, Best Serial Comic and Best Dramatic Comic. If you won't accept the WCCA as pure shit now, you never will.
Back to CRFH and what a gigantic pile of shit it is. Let's cover a few topics simply: Campos can't draw noses (or attractive women). Campos uses too many speech bubbles (and too much retarded dialogue). Campos can't use speech bubbles properly anyway (hello talking cat). Campos thinks a cow shooting lightning is actually intimidating. Campos draws sunglasses as gaping holes into eternity where the eyes should be. Campos loves copying and pasting. A lot. Campos believes using pattern fills is fine.
In fact I could take a trundle through the whole archives and find flaws everywhere I look. I'm sure some of you are whining that flaws don't matter and it's the whole product that I should be looking at, but when all I can see in every fucking strip is flaw after flaw... that is the whole fuckin' product. I've read the vast majority of the archives, only skimming through the boring parts... okay, it's all boring, so I guess I mean the useless shit at the start that nobody cares about. But I have looked through it all, and the idea that people not only read this shit on a daily basis, but actually like it to boot... well, I probably would be more shocked if I didn't know that a lot of people who read webcomics are pretty dumb and easily entertained.
So, College Roomies from Hell!!! - one bad webcomic. One seriously terrible webcomic. One utter fucking waste of everything conceivable. If there truly is a talking cow out there, wrapped up in a black sheet and making like the Emperor in Jedi, then I ask of him this: destroy this shitty webcomic and the useless hack responsible. I realise that this would be an act of good, and your bovine nature would reject it so, but consider all the fans willing to sell their souls to get back their daily fix of banal drama. Their scabby little souls, covered in acne and Cheeto dust. Isn't that worth it, Mr. Cow?
Oh yeah, I forgot, that means you'd get the soul of Bobby Tangents. Yikes. Well, maybe you can turn him down or something.
135 comments:
- you would think since webcomics aren't controlled by comic book companies and newspapers who need to appeal to the lowest common denominator to make money that we would be getting a lot of quality shit on the internet. but somehow we still just have a bunch of fucking garfields and inuyashas
- You forget that the newspapers appeal to the lowest common denominator, but webcomics are made by the lowest common denominator.
- Thank you for this! I've waited so long for someone to bash this piece of shit. All those charactes with upturned noses, all those characters talking out of the side of their mouth, all that blurry shading... BARF! After all these years of practice how can the art still be so shitty?
- This is the comic that Tangents asshole is obsessed with? Jesus Christ, he has even less taste than I thought he did.
- I had heard of this webcomic before, but never actually looked at it. It is amazingly bad. That's about all I can say.
- This post has been removed by the author.
- *reposted because I accidentally said "comic" instead of "blog"* Man, I love this blog. You're the only one who deals with these shitty comics I can't stand honestly.
- Jesus. Fucking. Christ. The art for this comic is just downright fucking terrible. I can't even get to the dialogue because the art just drags my eyes away from it and won't fucking let go. Whoever thinks it's okay to like this shit is someone with no taste and eager to fellate the lowest of the low. Robert Howard, I'm lookin' at you, you sick fuck.
- It's okay to like this shit because Maritza Campos is a GURL you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh jeepers maybe if I say enough nice things she'll acknowledge my existence
- "you would think since webcomics aren't controlled by comic book companies and newspapers who need to appeal to the lowest common denominator to make money that we would be getting a lot of quality shit on the internet." We do. You're just not looking hard enough. http://www.lucid-tv.com/ http://brink.skulldog.net/ http://www.zombiegrotto.com/ http://spqrblues.comicgenesis.com/ http://aldus.comicgen.com/ Not to mention Gunnerkrigg Court, Lackadaisy Cats, The Perry Bible Fellowship, Ice, Wonderella, The Tenth Life of Pishio The Cat, What Birds Know, Templar, and so forth.
- Yeah this is on my all-time worst webcomics list. You're doing a good job here by savaging the long-running middle ground of shit that's awful, but not awful enough to be actually interesting in a car-crash way (like Boston & Shaun or Triquetra Cats). Please write this blog forever. Also the book of my webcomic, Red Eye, Black Eye, is out and everybody should buy it. It got written up in Spin. There's no talking animals or photoshop filters.
- I have a feeling that, perhaps, you, John Solomon, wanted to do a blog that discussed webcomics, but thought that something that simply did the good critic thing, comparing good points and bad points, etc., would be lost in the shuffle. Thus, taking the stance that all webcomics are crap and the persona of a crotchety old geek. It makes you stand out, you still get to talk about comics, and you can piss off some people in the process. 10-to-1 you secretly enjoys most of the comics you review.
- Or maybe he just wants to take the piss out of fucking terrible webcomics.
- I have a feeling that most webcomics suck ass, and that most people in the "webcomic community" are too brain-dead or too busy workin' that circle-jerk to notice.
- Dan, the author of this blog posts on a message board I frequent, and believe it or not, there are actually several webcomics he really does like. The purpose of this blog is to write about comics that he feels are terrible (and trust me, he really, honestly does think all of the comics he's written about are terrible) in order to counter the "culture of nice" that infests the webcomic community.
- "We do. You're just not looking hard enough. http://www.lucid-tv.com/ http://brink.skulldog.net/ http://www.zombiegrotto.com/ http://spqrblues.comicgenesis.com/ http://aldus.comicgen.com/" hey thanks for saving me some work. i'll check them out. i've seen pbf before and i do like that. and white ninja
- Oh, another thing, Dan: just for my own curiosity, exactly what good points are there with reguards to CRFH, Cartridge Comics, Minimum Security, or most of the things he's reviewed? Please tell me, because I haven't found them, and if there in fact aren't any (or at least none worth mentioning), then what exactly is the problem here?
- Wow, I'm surprised you made through a blog without kissing the ass of Penny Arcade's Holkins and Krahulik. John Solomon is such a sucker for the insertion of Holkin's neice. I guess writers are known for portraying their underage family members with lolicon aspects of dresses and midriffs. Krahulik obviously has no problems drawing such works. Such a creative team. And I thought Child's Play showed their love for children to a T.
- Yes, how dare the Penny Arcade guys depict a female in rather normal clothing?
- bd, that's the most hilarious attempt at a point that I've ever seen. A girl depicted wearing clothes girls actually wear. Scandalous!
- "taking the stance that all webcomics are crap" The thing is, he's not taking that stance. He's taking the stance that SOME webcomics are crap, these specific ones.
- Have you considered publishing these in book form when you write enough? If Kurtz and T. Campbell can make money from books peddling their crappy ideas on how to make webcomics and crappy history of webcomics, respectively, you should be able to make money talking about crappy webcomics. Another idea: maybe convert your rants into comic form, with an artist who knows how to make a comic that doesn't suck? I know I'd read it. And a webcomic based on the concept of knocking down other webcomics is a level of "meta" not seen for a while.
- This is one of those comics I saw when I was fresh on the internet and thought that all Webcomics were just super swell, and I went "Geez, this is a pile of shit". That was back in 2002. It hasn't improved any in 5 years. Also, when oh when oh WHEN are you going to tear apart Questionable Content? I really want to see that one ripped to shreds.
- "John Solomon is such a sucker for the insertion of Holkin's neice. I guess writers are known for portraying their underage family members with lolicon aspects of dresses and midriffs." If you think that's lolicon, then I bet you'd call a bikini full-frontal nudity. No, that's not loli. It's not wa-loli, it's not goth-loli. It's a Victorian dress. As for the midriff? While I'm sure you probably don't agree with it, that's what girls often wear. If she were in a tube top, I'd say your cheap insult was right on the money. Instead you're just really reaching, and come off as a petty fag. But hey, if we're going to pull out ad hominem arguments, let's talk about that shit band in your link, shall we?
- GAH!!! MY EYES!!! LEARN TO DRAW, FOR FUCKSAKE!!!
- Honestly, I'm just happy someone else hates that comic.
- Have you considered publishing these in book form when you write enough? If Kurtz and T. Campbell can make money from books peddling their crappy ideas on how to make webcomics and crappy history of webcomics, respectively, you should be able to make money talking about crappy webcomics. This shit is something I do in my spare time. If I was going to write a book I'd, I dunno, put some effort in. As it stands all I'm doing now is going to Blogger, clicking "new post" and checking off another pile of shit from the unfortunately long list I've made. Besides, I seriously doubt people would buy a book that makes fun of webcomics. But maybe one of these days I'll use this blog to plug something, if only so people can scream with jubilation that I've sold out and thus all the stuff I said about their most beloved webcomic wasn't true. Because that's exactly how it works, you know. Meanwhile I continue on in my quest to find a webcomic I can blog about that somehow doesn't attract a fresh batch of slack-jawed cocks to the comments page. Unlikely!
- For the record, Campos is Mexican, which is why her Eenglish sometimes not so good. That aside: THANK YOU.
- Yanno, I never understood the popularity of CRFH. The plot is so weak(Correction: There IS no plot, just a series of unfortunate drama), and the art always seems so awful. If she can draw better, why does she settle for crap art? I'm guessing she can't draw any better. On the CRFH forums, her posters refer to her as "the Goddess". I believe at her insistence. The characters are all interchangeable, the "plot" is centered around things that have happened to them...she needs to give up CRFH. She JUST killed off a main character, one of the passably interesting characters. If she brings him back, it's cheap. If she leaves him out, the comic is now short the majority of what made it "interesting". Bleh. Good review- just wait until the fans get whiff of it.
- I like this John Solomon guy - he's pointing out things I can do to improve my shitty comic.
- oh man are you in for a shitstorm; CRFH fans are stone crazy fucking MADMEN.
- So here's something I can actually tell you which will leave you depressed for humanity, John. I've admitted to being a reader of the strip at times, so I can give backstory most can't. And one line in the review was so hilarious because of it. You know how you said, and I quote: Nobody's going to be giving a shit about Dave kicking the bucket, unless they're so over-emotional they break into tears when the newsreader says "Goodnight". Dave originally died. In fact, the only reason he lived is because there was a giant fan outcry for it at the time the strip was posted. I wasn't around at the time, so I can't say I saw it, but it was brought up frequently by others on the board. I'm pretty sure Robbie Tangents was one of those begging for Dave to survive.
- Well fuck me, this pretty much has killed off the last tattered shreds of my belief that people actually desire good entertainment.
- Once, back in... 2004, I think, I started reading through the CRFH archives. I was slowly making my way through Top 100 Comix or some other voter-based webcomic ranking sites. I didn't finish it. I had happily read through Misfile, Sluggy Freelance, PvP, and a dozen bloated webcomic archives. But I never finished this one. I just couldn't go on after the third "drug use opens a gateway to a fantasy world" storyline - this time a parody of the X-Files that involved, if I remember correctly, everybody getting superpowers. This is truly a terrible webcomic
- I know you've said you hate it when people tell you what you should do next, but I am really hoping you choose to write about Questionable Content sometime soon. After having read it for, I dunno, a year or so now, I have only recently realized how awful it really is.
- It's on the list, yes.
- Also hey check out the new photo. Since some morons are intent on thinking that they can covet my perfect life, I thought I'd just deny them that pleasure.
- How long until you do Candi?nlg
- I get there when I fucking get there.
- I noticed that you referenced MegaTokyo as being part of the Ultra-Shitty-Webcomics Club. Thinking about getting round to that one day? Pyro could use a good kick in the nuts.
- Of course Bobby Tangents praised this crap-ass strip. From his bio: "has scripted a week-long story for CRfH. Back in 2002 he created a spin-off comic based on CRfH" There's bad webcomics, and then there's making fan fiction for bad webcomics. Apparently there's a depth below rock-bottom.
- Ben: The dude is trying to make a fanfic he wrote for the strip into a NOVEL. He went beyond sanity with regards to this strip years ago.
- I noticed that you referenced MegaTokyo as being part of the Ultra-Shitty-Webcomics Club. Thinking about getting round to that one day? Pyro could use a good kick in the nuts. I. GET. THERE. WHEN. I. GET. THERE. God, you people can be so fucking dense sometimes.
- Is Gene Catlow on the list? Because if there was ever a comic that deserved to be in this blog it's that piece of shit.
- HAY JON WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO REVIEW oh never mind, I can't do it even in parody. Maybe you should make a poll to see what comic people want you to review next. And then completely disregard the results, just to be an asshole. Hearing that this comic actually has fans -- dedicated fans, no less -- baffles and saddens me. At least with some of the other comics I could sort of get a handle on what kind of person could enjoy it, even if those people were kind of lame people. Here, the best I can think of is "13 year old girls who have never turned on the television or opened a book or visited any other site on the internet." But those things are fictional, aren't they? It doesn't surprise me that English isn't her first language, though; it was the first thing I thought on reading the dialogue. Although even forgiving her this, it raises the following questions: 1. Why doesn't she do a comic in a language she's more comfortable in? 2. Why doesn't she get a native speaker of English to check over her stuff and make it more colloquial? 3. Failing #1 and #2, why does nobody who reads the thing notice how incomprehensible the dialogue is?
- Hahahaha, you're funny. :)P Ok, so I was one of them stone crazy fucking MADMEN. I still am, in a way. But some years ago someone made me realize, that blind fanatism was a bad thing, and that I should look beyond my own little world. The fact that I read your review and I'm not in front of your house with a bunch of my friends and wielding torchs and pitchforks actually makes me cheerful and relieved. I may actually take some of it as advice if I ever start making a webcomic again. However, I'll still keep reading it until it ends, and no angry review by an angry nobody in a throne will change that. Also, because I still want to know how it will end. I don't want to leave myself out in the Blue. Hahahaha. :P P.S: I want to know what do you think of http://hownottorunacomic.comicgenesis.com/
- One word... Misfile.
- Is English Campos' second language? I refuse to believe a native English speaker could write this kind of a train wreck and have so little understanding of how real people speak in conversation.
- I clicked on those links and threw up a little in my mouth. Awful. Seriously, how could you look at this long enough to write something so detailed? I could not finish a SINGLE strip. I had to look away, it was painful to do otherwise.
- How does pictures help no one can see them if they click on the specific webcomic blog. The only way to see em is if you want to post your own comment.
- Heh. This is one of those that went beyond the "bad" pile into the "painful" pile. I saw this comic once before doing a crossover with something else I was reading in a bored day in the school library. Repulsed even in that short time. And that's before I'd even seen but three or four webcomics. (hmm... nestacos because one of my friends printed it out. second was another similar but dumber (amazingly) comic. Then whatever led me to keenspot.) "Meanwhile I continue on in my quest to find a webcomic I can blog about that somehow doesn't attract a fresh batch of slack-jawed cocks to the comments page. Unlikely!" But that wouldn't be any fun now, would it? Think I saw something that fit the bill, though...
- I thought that Sore Thumbs had died or something, but I found out today that it is now a pay-comic or some shit. And then I thought of this blog. You do good work here, sir. Damn good work.
- Robert 'That Mealy-Mouthed Cocksucker from Tangents' Howard commented on my livejournal, regarding a post I made about this blog. It's pretty awesome: http://druhol.livejournal.com/118343.html?view=278599
- Now here we have what is one of the inherent flaws of wikipedia, which is that only people who are interested in something in some way will write about it; thus usually setting it in a good light, instead of a non-judgemental one. For instance if you have nothing but time on your hands, and actually read that so called article on College Roomies from Hell!!! You shall notice that had to written by a fan or even the writer, no else would have created such thing. It goes for everything really, even with a comic such as Diesel Sweeties, which has wikipedia article that say that, quote, unquote "The most distinctive aspect of the comic is the art style" Despite the fact that the art is the most "pasted over-again" Jabberwocky there is. This shows that, in the mind of a "fan" nothing can be wrong with whatever their zealous love is for, and will gloss over the problems, such as it with Diesel Sweeties, and will also outright lie about the content such as the do by calling College Roomies from Hell!!! " [A] alternately humorous and dark serial comic strip."
- Is English Campos' second language? Yes.
- Questionable Content is awesome and you all suck.
- I know you will not thank me for suggesting yet another soul-destroyingly awful webcomic to review, but I simply must mention Mall Monkeys, archived here: www.mallmonkeys.com/archive.php It's long-finished now, but for some reason it was inexplicably popular despite being completely shitty.
- oh darn, that didn't paste right. maybe if i make it a link... mall monkeys there! there is no escape also, seconding gene catlow
- Man, that certainly is a crap comic. Nice one Solly, you seem to be back on form. Keep up the good work.
- Questionable Content's cast is full of useless, self-obsessed sperm-and-egg omelets who are so gosh-darn impressed with their own cutesy, forced banter they make me want to throw up. So. yeah, self-indulgent shoegazing mediocrity is awesome!
- This pile of dog shit actually won some kind of award?
- Seriously, how could you look at this long enough to write something so detailed? I could not finish a SINGLE strip. I had to look away, it was painful to do otherwise. Seething hatred, my friend. Simple, seething hatred.
- This pile of dog shit actually won some kind of award? Like I said, Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards. It's awards that are given to people by the same people receiving them.
- I was actually brought onto panel2panel briefly as a reviewer as a sort of "alternate/replacement" to Tangents, so it's good to see him continuing to get bashed. (I left after bashing Multiplex and having a shit-storm of Multiplexites come after me. Now I'm starting to see how much fun it is watching fans zealously defend their webcomic gods)
- I will be forever patient regarding your review of Questionable Content. The unrealistic vocabulary of the cast is reminiscent of the word bloated rants from Dennis Miller Live.
- What does one have to do to have an unpopular webcomic? As far as I can tell, it's impossible, because so far all of the comics reviewed on this blog seem to have ungodly amounts of fans.
- It's absolutely humorous that you feel it necessary to drag me back into this, John. Especially for a comic that I had stopped reading for a while and have on a number of occasions criticized for its storyline and characterization. Naturally you pick only the articles that best suit your purposes in ridiculing people. To all John's readers, I'm going to offer you a link so you can read some real reviews: http://bleep.panel2panel.com/bleep-index.html Anderson knows that there is far more to a review than spouting off a few harsh words and making aspersions on someone's personal character. Oh, and John? You've lost your touch. Your PvP article was truly limp. There was much potential there for some true venom, and you fell flat on your face. You've wasted far too much effort and time worshipping Mookie and Dominic Deegan (no doubt with your own little personalized shrine in your closet where you worship him from afar and dream of the day you can meet him in person and shake his hand with your sweaty palms). If you're going to do this, do it right. Get your act together and stop wasting your time on DD. We know already how you feel about it. Talk about something new. And try to regain that touch you once had, because right now you're just blowing so much hot air. Robert A. Howard, Tangents Reviews
- Saying "i don't like what this character is doing" isn't really criticizing the strip, it's just being a whiny little bitch. If there's better critiquing of CRFH in Tangents, I didn't find it, because as soon as I came across Robert praising a CRFH fanfic in which ONE OF THE CHARACTERS GETS RAPED I closed my browser as quickly as possible. God, what is with every "writer" on the internet using rape as a plot device? They're worse than 19th century writers overusing TB.
- Actually I praised the realistic portrayal of the pure hell that a person goes through. Not the rape. Then again, Ben, you couldn't hack doing the reviews, else you'd still be at Panel2panel. At least Solomon, for all his diluted bile, has been keeping up on it. Rob H.
- It's not that I couldn't hack it, Robert. I just have more important things to do with my time, like having a fulfilling career and a life, and not spend all my time on the internet sucking up to shitty webcomic artists. This is not the place to debate it, in any event.
- It's absolutely humorous that you feel it necessary to drag me back into this, John. Because you're a cretinous little toadie who constantly sucks up to webcomic jerks in an attempt to be popular by proxy. That's comedy fucking gold. All your other little festering habits - claiming you do "real reviews", your raging boner for Campos, your inability to write and, oh yeah, *evil smirk* - are just icing on the cake.
- I hate to interrupt this argument between the three of you, but I need to mark my place in the comments so I can come back and see Robert suck shit some more. Oh, and great review as always, etc., etc., John. Every day that you post a new review, I like to go to Tangents and laugh at how much of a pussy Robert is. The best part is, he thinks we want someone who actual reviews things. Bob (can I call you Bob? No? Too bad), I don't want webcomic reviews. If I did, a.) I wouldn't be reading John Solomon, as you can't have a good review site if you don't talk about good comics, and b.) I wouldn't read Tangents, as you can't have a good review site if you suck up to everyone. No, if I wanted real webcomic reviews, well, I'd be fucked, wouldn't I, because a site like that doesn't exist. Luckily, I couldn't give two shits about webcomic reviews. I like John Solomon because he's a huge fucking douchebag, and it's hilarious. Grow some fucking testicles. And a brain, while you're at it. P.S. Tangents is a steaming pile of feces. Good day to you.
- Wait, this is a review blog? I must have the wrong URL. I'm pretty certain the blog I was looking for was about shitty webcomics and why they're shitty.
- Of course it's a review blog. I just happen to only review bad webcomics. I mean, sure: I could have started up a blog for reviewing only good webcomics. But it wouldn't have worked. You see, there are any number of webcomic "review" places and the majority of them work like Tangents. Everything gets praised all the time and nothing has a single flaw. So even if my blog had touched only upon the webcomics I think are good, people would have gone "ugh another dicksucking creep like Robert A. Howard" and ignored me. Either that or they would have gone "oh boy, another dicksucking creep like Robert A. Howard" and tried to get me to plug their festering shitpile in return for nothing whatsoever. Like Robert A. Howard does. Because he has no self-respect. So while I'm not talking about what's good, at least this way you know what's bad.
- therum: We've been trying to get him to grow a pair for years at the CRFH forums. The best that's ever happened is that he runs away crying but returns after a few months.
- Yeah, he'll do that. He's left this place "forever" twice so far.
- No surprise there. Every post he's ever made shows what a huge fucking vagina he is.
- I would like to contend that Robert Howard is nothing like a vagina. Vaginas get action on occasion.
- didn't tangents get banned/exiled from the CRFH forums not once, but several times? which is probably the sole reason he forced himself to shit out slightly negative comments about the comic even the horrible webcomic-'goddess' worshipping freaks don't want him
- Dude, festering drama explosion! This comments section got awesome! On thinking about it, I question the necessity of "regular" webcomic reviews, even if there was a site that would create truly balanced reviews. Movie reviews are to help you keep from spending money on crap; book reviews are the same. TV reviews are to help you plan out your watching schedule, because you can only catch a show at a certain time of the day. But webcomics (for the most part) are free, they're always there, and you can generally know within a few strips whether or not they're any good; certainly, you will be able to make a decision for yourself just by reading the archives in as long a time it takes for you to read some guy's five-page review of it (because it's not like internet writers understand the concept of economy of words). Aside from those strips that have subscriber-only archives or summat, it just seems unnecessary. This is of course assuming that the reviewer's words don't have some merit in and of themselves. I enjoy reading this blog more than I enjoy reading most webcomics, because I am a mean and spiteful person.
- I still don't understand why people who write novels, make movies and paint giant floor to ceiling murals can start something, finish it in a few years, and move on, yet webcomic people will continue on with a story that they started badly, usually keeping it going about eight years, instead of moving on to something different and maybe more appropriate to their current level. I mean, I'd think after slightly improving your art and getting your obsessive fans to buy you a tablet or something, it would be fun to try something new. Do these people only have one idea every ten years or what?
- Well, there is a reason that they're making shitty webcomics and only being famous to a small group of losers on the Internet. I'd say "and not making any money" but those losers on the Internet have a lot of disposable income they're not spending on WoW, Cheetos and Magic: the Gathering cards.
- This thing is so bad it manages to make some of the other entries look professional. That's really bad.
- It's not worse than Pastel Defender Heliotrope.
- I don't think anything can be worse than the sexual mind-fuckery that is Pastel Defender Heliotrope. I felt so fucking dirty reading that comic, by the way. Worst of all? The dirt won't come off.
- I think this one best sums up the comic, although you might have to read ahead to get the full impact: http://www.crfh.net/d/20040518.html MOM? EVIL OVERLORD? lmao. Instant soap opera, just add water.
- John, how often do good webcomics go bad? I was regularly impressed with Questionable Content's decent punchlines and ever-better art, but now it has been stagnant and unfunny for like two years.
- They're webcomics. For the most part, people aren't making any money from this shit. Why would you expect professional-level work from something someone does in their free time?
- But they are making money off this shit, you fucking moron. And even if they don't, you'd at least expect grown men and women be able to draw and write better than a twelve-year-old if they're going to put their prided creation up on the internet for all to see.
- Or at least not sob uncontrollably like a 12-year-old when someone calls it out for being shit.
- Re : Ted David Really? Well, then if they're making money, then obviously someone's willing to pay for their work. Can't be that bad, can it? And if nothing else, this blog does serve a purpose. All the bouncing to links in comic pages must be great for ad impressions!
- Thank you Mr Solomon, CRFH is one of the shittiest things out there, and I'm glad someones actually taken the time to explain why. Now if someone could just take the time to tell us how the fuck some of these comics get so damn popular in the first place. Now, when are you going to get to Candi, a sitty manga inspired piece of crap that features the flat out dumbest lead character in the history of fiction and goes absolutly nowhere for months at a time. Or what about Anywhere But Here a webcomic so fucking bad the creator himself said it was fucking awefull and quit, only that cocksucking moron decided to fucking start it back up again months later. Or theres always Sinfest. This was easily one of the best things going two years ago, and now it's just an unreadable fucking joke.
- first- the 'hair colour thing'. refferred to on the forum as the 'hair colour theory'. well, yes, mike and marsha have the same colour hair. so do dave and margaret,(although dave has said he doesn't love her anymore,). so what? i will here list the other relationships, and see if they fit. vernon and the dragon- blue and brown/grey. dave and blue- brown and blue. diana and roger- red ahir blonde. april fancying mike- blonde and black thadues fancying le dragonne-bald and blue wow. so theres one and a half that fit, and at least 5 that don't. my point, it is proven.wazjatoe
- Next, the language problem. Did you know that Maritza(hereby referred to as 'Mari' or 'the goddess')is Mexican? Spanish is her first language. English is her second. So please excuse her for the fact that she doesn't get every single word right. now- destinated isn't a word, is nit? well, i hear it a lot. on the news, the tv.. maybe its because im in england, not your precious 'amyerica' but its like the word 'aint'. fussy people say it isn't a real word, but that doesn't stop people from saying it
- First things first. I used to just read webcomics. I vaguely knew a small amount of the drama that was going on if it was obvious, like some of the shit Kurtz liked to start, but for the most part paid it no heed. Then I heard of your blog. (from the link on Shortpacked, ironically) Now I follow links upon links from you blog and your allies' (for lack of a better word) blogs, and I can't get enough of it. It's so darkly entertaining. I'm not sure whether to blame you, or to thank you. Anyways, onward to the post, I suppose... My god, the comment are even more fucking brilliant than the review, and that's saying a lot, because it's sadly accurate. But the comments... my god Tangents, do you ever shut up? Do you like being a punching bag? EVERYONE hates you, even the people from the comic you *used* (or so you say) to obsess over. Just, I dunno, stay on your own site and beat off to your own reviews, since they're so great.
- Hi. Devoted fan of the comic, presenting self for scorn, rebuke, questioning of parentage & heterosexuality and so forth. The art was, initially, terrible. (It is possible to deny this, but I've seldom seen anyone try.) If you think the art is still terrible, however, I want to know what you're smoking. I like the characters, particularly Dave. I sympathise with him. Given that he's a bit of a spineless, whiney loser, I concede this probably says nothing good about me. Nevertheless. Regarding Maritza being a foreigner and her english being awkward as a result, I've been living in a foreign country for years and I hear worse than that every day, so maybe I'm immune to such things. But c'mon, it's a silly thing to complain about anyway. Stop being so prissy and stick to moaning about how Maritza doesn't share your platonic ideal of the perfect stylised cartoon nose. "Meanwhile I continue on in my quest to find a webcomic I can blog about that somehow doesn't attract a fresh batch of slack-jawed cocks to the comments page. Unlikely!" But that wouldn't be any fun now, would it? Quite. The comments section would be boring without all the outraged fans and the dittoheads going "dude, I hate this comic too!!"
- Oh boy, where to begin! Let's see, first you claim that the art isn't terrible. Hahaha, okay, next question. You like the characters. All right, that's fair enough. It's more of an retarded opinion than a retarded statement like "The art is good!" I can't really argue with "I like the characters" because you do like the characters, but I can call you an idiot for assuming any of the cast actually have any kind of personality to them beyond two or three vague words. Hahahaha, back to the art. My idea of a nose isn't a gigantic, bulbous tumour that sticks out of the face one minute and disappears the next. Saying that shitty art isn't shit because it's a "style" doesn't fly, bucko. It's shit and that's all it'll be. And oh, how you misunderstand me. I'm aching for intelligent discourse, pal. I don't want a bunch of suck-ups going "oh yeah you're totally right" to me. I want people who add things to the conversation. But that ain't you, sunshine. You're just one more slack-jawed cock. The difference is you're not the type who goes "ur a faget john solololamer" - you're just like Robert A. Howard of Robert A. Howard's Tangents (by Robert A. Howard). Long-winded, attempting to be condescending from your parent's basement, but still a fuckin' dumbass. Hahahahaha, and I still can't get over the fact you think the art is good.
- The art was, initially, terrible. Yes, and now it's...marginally less terrible. And look how long it took for Campos even to get that far.
- And oh, how you misunderstand me. I'm aching for intelligent discourse, pal. I don't want a bunch of suck-ups going "oh yeah you're totally right" to me. I want people who add things to the conversation. ...OK, I'll bite. What kind of conversation are you trying to get started here, and what do you want people to add to it? Beyond joining in savaging your latest target, I mean?
- The fact you need me to explain what "intelligent discourse" is speaks volumes about how little you'd be able to participate, but very well. The fact of the matter is that the webcomics I review are bad. Now I'm sure the cringing sycophant part of you wants to contest that. Considering it's the majority vote, you probably will speak up about how I'm wrong. But hey, I'm not wrong. There's not a single thing I've said that you can refute. You can tell me the writing is good and the art is good until your fingers break off, but Goddamn if that won't make it the slightest bit true. Any reasonable objective viewer can look at CRFH and think "This is shit." I go into each review knowing full well that what I am reviewing has little to no redeeming features. Likewise, I know that at least a few members of its retarded fanbase will take umbrage at me calling them easily-amused morons and insulting "their" webcomic. I was expecting this especially from CRFH, since there are some among your number that actually refer to Maritza as "the Goddess". Which is fucking hilarious. I can only imagine how they might react to someone with a modicum of talent, except that they (like most fans of bad webcomics) are utterly incapable of distinguishing good from bad. (This includes you, just FYI. Anyone who says that CRFH's art isn't awful cannot judge anything objectively.) But as I said before, I don't want people merely going "oh yeah me too" and nodding along. Those people are the same as you people, only they've latched onto me rather than CRFH. Now, even though myself and this blog are a much better target of worship from these yes-men, it's still fairly abysmal. What do I want from the comments? People making intelligent, perhaps witty observations and statements about the topic at hand. People contributing to the discussion of the webcomic and pointing out things I may have missed in my spirited panic to get through the ordeal as quickly as possible and not have to look at another fucking strip of this shit. People inquiring about things, people relating their own experiences with bad webcomics... a general discussion, in other words. What I get is yes-men, fucking idiots and the occasional glimmer of sapience from a small handful of people I already know. Oh, and Robert A. Howard, who is in a category all of his own because nobody else wants him. I hope that answers your question in a way that you, as a CRFH fan, are familiar with: a torrent of words. Sorry I couldn't say it all while crying in the rain and with a cancerous wart for a nose. I know how much you guys dig that.
- John: They're savaging me, instead, all because (and this is ironic) I asked what people thought in an honest attempt to see what the new fans would say. For fuck's sake, I even tried to play nice. Look how well that went over, eh? THE CRAZY IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE FORUM.
- The thing I never understood about CRFH is how anyone can actually LIKE any of the characters when, by and large, none of the descriptors that can be applied to them can be considered "good". There are, at most, two characters in the entire strip who aren't terrible, and Campos has (at various times) gone out of her way to torture them or make then unlikeable through a variety of methods. Dave? Stalker tendencies and a pathological liar. Mike? Supposed to come off as the "bad boy with a heart of gold", but comes off as a self-interested dick. Roger? Hypocrite. April? I'd call that "character assassination", but she didn't really have a character beforehand, so it's more of a case of saying "Hey, let's make a character totally unlikeable, but still keep them a main character". It's all "drama drama drama drama" in a GAG COMIC, only the drama is forced and the gags are only funny in a "laughing at" sense. I still don't understand how anyone reads CRFH anymore, let alone likes it.
- For fuck's sake, I even tried to play nice. Look how well that went over, eh? THE CRAZY IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE FORUM. I have said it before: webcomic fans are as fucking stupid as they are fucking obsessed.
- Aquapunk- `now- destinated isn't a word, is nit? well, i hear it a lot. on the news, the tv.. maybe its because im in england, not your precious 'amyerica' but its like the word 'aint'. fussy people say it isn't a real word, but that doesn't stop people from saying it` I'm in dear old mother England too, and you're talking proper bollocks. It's not a word in any country, and certainly not this one.
- Aw, here I was waiting for the promised CRFH fan invasion and flame war. All we got is, what, 4 or 5 folks whose comments could barely be called matchsticks much less flames. Of the other 100+ comments, it's all been "ZOMG John I totally agree with everything you type dittodittoditto!" and/or "I hate (comic name) please mock it for me so I can feel good seeing someone else get made fun of". Disappointing!
- during every stanza of his current and prior posts, I entertained myself with imagining him raising those arguments against the entire body of the works of Shakespeare, you know "bad" English, shallow characterization, drama, drama, drama, deaths as plot-points, rape as a topic, confusing dialogues, the physiognomie of Shakespeares body and head, etc. pp. I find that imagining that, and the sudden realization that his arguments work there just as well as against everything else, immensely funny. mean, just imagine: "A little later, he proves himself to be perhaps forty or fifty years old by assuming that young english aristocrats wear Surcoats, Farthingales and look like Henry V. as if he was imagined by someone without any artistic talent. In a few more plays he shows to be moving into territory that will later be conquered by Goethe, but I've had enough of this shit. Let's move on."
- You know, I bet a lot of you CRFH fans could shut Solomon up easily if you just proved him wrong about his assessment of the characters: Try describing any of these characters without referring to things which primarily took place in the webcomic and you'll hit a bit of a stumbling block. You'll find out that they aren't as "deep" as you though. Then take out references to physical appearance, hobbies and relationships and I guarantee you that you will not top twenty words. So get to it, folks! Instead of whining about how much of an asshole John is for making fun of Maritza's crappy face-drawing skills, why not get to work and prove him wrong? Show him that these characters aren't as shallow as they seem, that they have personalities and goals and motivations underneath the things that happen to them. Shouldn't be too hard, right?
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- Other post was deleted for retreading old ground (bitch can't draw, bitch uses Photoshop filters like it's Photoshop Filter Orgy Day, bitch draws her women with amazingly unrealistic breasts, despite apparently owning a pair). But I wanted to note that bitch doesn't get a free pass for being foreign, because I don't note linguistic problems, having forced my eyes to read the latest ...thing... that bitch has cooked up. No. I note that the writing is fucking terrible. You could write this in Spanish, Maritza, and it would still be shit. You could write it in French. Or Esperanto. You could write it in fucking Irish, and one of the few Irish-speakers in the world would recognize it as shit. Shit is shit, all the way down. Dominic Deegan is by no means a good example for anyone who wants to do well at their comic, but when I read the dialogue, as admittedly comic-book purple-prose fucking bullshit as Terraciano's writing is, I feel less like my eyes have been assaulted then I do with Campos. It's more like the man's an artistic hobo with a really, really prominent lazy eye or harelip, and he's begging me for change. I feel bad for the man, because maybe, maybe there could be some tiny spark of talent buried deep under those rags. Campos, on the other hand, is like the douchebag retard who can't hold down a job at McDonald's because they just don't fucking try; there is no spark, there's no potential, there is a sack of shit generating more shit every single Goddamn day.
- during every stanza of his current and prior posts, I entertained myself with imagining him raising those arguments against the entire body of the works of Shakespeare Comparing CRFH to Shakespeare has me fucking lollin' IRL. I think that's got to be the webcomic version of Godwin's Law or something. As soon as you compare a webcomic to Shakespeare, you fail.
- Show him that these characters aren't as shallow as they seem, that they have personalities and goals and motivations underneath the things that happen to them. Shouldn't be too hard, right? You realise, of course, that now I'm going to have to sit through fifty fucking comments explaining that shit like "has superpowers" or "loves Dave" doesn't count. Over and over and over again, until someone finally manages to describe one of those cut-outs in twenty words and is smug as smug can be until I point out that deep characters are usually around the 60-100 word mark. Which will then cue another torrent of bullshit comments. You secretly hate me, don't you.
- You secretly hate me, don't you. ...it's possible. But I hate CRFH more.
- What I found funny in Johns post about what he wanted in these comments he basically said "It's impossible for me to be wrong". That's going to make for some awesome future comment threads. Especially when he gets to QC, a comic that I personally enjoy, that has a big, big fanbase. That flamefest is going to be awesome, totally awesome. But my favorite part is that there's scores of people reading this who're feeling all smug because "I don't post, I'm sooo above this"
- Comparing CRFH to Shakespeare has me fucking lollin' IRL. I think that's got to be the webcomic version of Godwin's Law or something. As soon as you compare a webcomic to Shakespeare, you fail. Except, of course, that he didn't compare Shakespeare to CRFH. He just pointed out that the style of criticism you're using here can tear anything apart, from Shakespeare to complete shit, with equal validity. Which, of course, makes it a useless style of criticism. And a lazy style for pissing people off.
- You're completely right about the WCCA, by the way. I recall earlier today I was looking for something to read and I though, "Why, these comics have won awards! Surely they are of an excellent quality." Nope. Shit. Utter shit. I do believe the winner of the best art awards was some anthro comic that lacked any shading.
- Except, of course, that he didn't compare Shakespeare to CRFH. He just pointed out that the style of criticism you're using here can tear anything apart, from Shakespeare to complete shit, with equal validity. The various and interesting ways people like to prove their unfathomable ignorance to me is an utter delight. There are many reasons why you're not only wrong, but totally fucking retarded, but gosh if it all isn't just blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain.
- OK, your are not going to think much good of me after you read what I am going to say, but if it is so bad, how come... How come when I started reading CRFH!!! I was hooked in less than ten strips. How come I have exploded from laughing almost continuously while reading the first archive. How come I care so much about those characters you consider so void? How come I fucking love this comic-strip so much? Despite the upper place of drama in the story, it's still a comedy comic, and it still make me laugh like no other. Can I truly enjoy a comic so much if I am delusional about its quality? The dialogs, the unexpected punchlines, the characterization... Because yes, I consider there is a good work at characterization. Each ones of the main cast have their own attitude, and sorry, they are not interchangeable. What does one in a situation, the other would do it differently if he was put in the same situation. You say they only stand apart from each other only by what happen to them? no. Even when they are together in same condition, they act differently and according to their own persona. What I truly appreciate in this comic is that no one is really a Hero (Hero with big H). They just happen to struggle with what comes in their life and getting out of it in one piece. That make them more humans than most of comic character I know All of what I say is purely subjective, but I don't simply like the comic, I truly enjoy it and take pleasure at each update. Can a comic give so much good times and still be bad? What I mean is, either this comic is not as bad as you think, or I am a moron who can only enjoy crapyness. Well I already know your opinion on that matter. But you also have mine.
- I consider there is a good work at characterization. Ding ding ding, you're an idiot. Go read a fucking book and see how it's done.
- It's a little too easy as an answer, isn't it? Someone is, like you say, not just characterized by what happen to them, but by HOW they react to it, and by what they do and think. Mike is (was) a manipulative bastard who only search to protect what is in his interest and the only few he truly care about (i.e. Blue and Marsha). He also have a circonvoluted code of honor, but always sticked to it. He was psychologically and physically tortured by an over controlling mother but decided to escape he clutch. Margaret is a distrusting girl used to loose everything she care about, always trying to run away from her "destiny". Overcompetitive and, until recently, decided to resolve all her trouble by herself. All her life, she was not even sure of her own sanity, now that she know the Devil is truly after her, she has resolved to really fight him. In love with Dave, but refusing to accept this sentiment in fear something wrong may happen to him. She only get open about it when he had moved to someone else. She also have a deep love for guns and coffee. Dave is a self pitying boy who think the world is after him and he may be right. To concentrate about how everything wrong happen to him , he is unable to see than other have problems too. Only his love for Margaret had been able to make him go into action. He is now with Blue, but him being poor really doesn't help with his already weak self confidence. That and he has terrible difficulty to affront his own responsibility. Marsha also have trusting problems She took betrayal very bad, to an almost psychopath level, being sometimes over suspicious and getting into furry at the slightest hint. In the recent even, she managed to come up with such tendency, get over the mischiefs of life and even forgive (then right after that, she get her boyfriend killed). She can't come up with the fact she'll never be a cooker like her father and even get delusional about that. She is beautiful, well she is meant to be beautiful, but as you don't like the drawing, you probably find she is ugly, anyway, she is beautiful and she knows it, and know how to manipulate the other. Roger refuge himself in a world of twisted logic and non-sens to hide himself from his sociopath tendency and not be overcome by his killing instinct. Or maybe his brain is just wired the wrong way. He may be a genius, and have high skills with electro-mechanism tough it is still debatable. His lake of social skill make him most of the time an outcast. He is a self proclaimed loser but has since long decided to fight that back, in the most unlogical ways possible. He is OK that his girlfriend is a hooker. April has a lot of issues. For long, she tried to be the normal girl, but she isn't. She come from a family circus with which she has several issues. And with the bunch of friend she had, being the normal girl is simply impossible. Her unproclammed love for Mike have made thing worst. feeling humiliated and manipulated, despairing she'll never be happy. She completely loose it and has gone from worst to worst, until she did the irreparable. Now on the run, it is not sure how she'll deal with her life now. She also have a imaginary herself telling her when she doesn't act reasonably. She generally don't listen to her. That was the main cast. And if you don't consider that as characterization, could you at least give me one true example of characterization.
- FACT: CRFH is a piece of shit. There's no way around it.
- That was the main cast. And if you don't consider that as characterization, could you at least give me one true example of characterization. Oh look I get to repeat myself again: Try describing any of these characters without referring to things which primarily took place in the webcomic and you'll hit a bit of a stumbling block. You'll find out that they aren't as "deep" as you though. Then take out references to physical appearance, hobbies and relationships and I guarantee you that you will not top twenty words. If you insist on continuing to moan about how I'm wrong because you, a person whose grasp of the English language is outmatched by many 10-year-olds, simply say that I'm wrong, then I'm not going to bother responding because obviously you're not living in reality. Newsflash, dimwit: you're never going to disprove me no matter how many huge-ass comments you post. Because you're wrong and you'll always be wrong. Get that through your fucking head and learn to deal with it. And stop pestering me, you know-nothing jackass. The day I get lectured on characterisation by a guy who can't even speak passable English is the day after my head has been hit by seventeen sequential trucks and I need to piece back together my brilliant mind from fucking newborn-level upwards.
- English is not my mother language either. You'll have to support that. Anyway, I thought you reproached the cast to not have characterization because they where subject of the events and did nothing to distinct each other! I'm OK with that opinion. I thought you dared someone to describe their character without just referring to what happens to them. This is what I did. Like I say before, in my opinion, characterization is how someone react to a situation, how they think, what's their habit and what they decide to do. It's also about their back story. and how they evolve personally. I have given all of those elements in my description. But now you are saying that what I did doesn't count because I used information from the comic? Well Duh! Am I supposed to pull new information out of nowhere? Go psychic and guess elements that haven't be revealed yet? I could do a lot of imaginary guess about each of the main cast, but I tried to stay factual. But there is more to them. During the seven years of the comic, Maritza has given more and more to each character, slowly developing them. But what you seems to reproach to the comic is that you are unable to imagine more about them until the author reveal it (and I am not talking simply about event happening to them). Once again, I ask you to give me a good example of characterization, because right now, you seem like you reproach to the comic that you are unable to guess how each of the cast will develop, that you can't tell what's behind their head or in their past. Just because you can't tell it doesn't mean that there is nothing.
- Can't understand what you're saying. Technically, can't be bothered understand what you're saying. Same thing, though. Still, since it's probably exactly what you said before, but with a fresh new attitude to appeal to the younger demographics, I'll repeat myself as well: it lies with you to refute my point, rather than for me to pander to your whims. The fact that you consider CRFH to have any characterisation at all, let alone good characterisation, shows that you have all the literary experience of a dead rat. Showing you anything would be a waste of time, since you wouldn't understand what it was and no amount of long-winded explanations would change that. So fuck off.
- Denying what I am saying is hardly making a point. And if you don't understand what I am saying, I'll tell you in a simpler way: What is characterization for you? And how do you give character to someone if you are not allowed to develop it in your story? Showing you anything would be a waste of time Ho, don't serve me that kind of crap! If you are here to give your opinion, and inform people how bad a comic is, don't give up when you are able to give something substantial.
- You think that CRFH has good characterisation, which obviously means you don't know what good characterisation is. I could show you anything and you'd either go "yes, this is good" or "no, this is bad" but it'd be like asking a deaf man what laughter sounds like. No, worse, it'd be like asking a snail for its opinion on the relationship between architecture and mathematics. That is, pointless. You've already failed to understand anything I've said on the subject, despite me being hilariously non-technical about it. It's like I've said "the webcomic uses too much blue" and you've asked me to define what blue is. Except I already did explain what blue is and you're not taking that for an answer. Seriously, what's the point in indulging your incomprehension?
- False. All you have done is telling what characterization is not. You have tell character is not about constant whining and is not about being the victim of the events. But about what characterization actually is, this basically all you say :"What does make a deeper character? Well, knowing that character would be nice. Not all the things that happened to them a few hundred strips ago, but who they are. Stuff that makes them seem more human.0" To take your metaphor, it's like you had told me "blue is not a car", "You can't use blue to cut paper" and then say "Blue is a color". You actually never said that "blue is the color of the sky". And each of those characters have a story. But when I tell you who they are, what's their personal story and why they are human. But you say that doesn't count because "that's told in the comic". Well, I ask, once again, how do you give personality to someone if you can not give it through your story? This one you haven't explained, and I would like to hear it. I have been giving you my definition of characterization. Twice. I'll do it a third time: "characterization is how someone react to a situation, how they think, what's their habit and what they decide to do. It's also about their back story. and how they evolve personally." Now I would like to hear about your definition of blue. Give at least a try. It will not be more a loss of time than reading bad webcomics.
- Blah blah blah. The burden of proof lies with you, not me.
- Basically, your main argument against me until now is "You don't think like me therefore you are an idiot and whatever you say is therefore wrong" It's a pretty effective method of argumentation, when you think about it: no matter what's your own opinion, you'll meet either: -a: people who agree with you and that you therefore consider intelligent enough to have a conversation with. But no need to convince them, as they already thinks like you. -b: people who don't agree with you and that you therefore consider too stupid to have a conversation with. and no need to convince them as they are to stupid for you to use your neurones on them. Congratulation! You are an as brilliant orator as a wall. Throwing your bunch of opinions and then bashing whoever would contradict you is not making a point!
- No, that's your main argument. You're the on who keeps saying that I'm wrong because you say I'm wrong. I say that CRFH has no characterisation for this reason, you say that very same reason is why it does have characterisation! Ha ha, oh my, you sure got me there! I guess that if a character gains laser eye-beams then gosh darn it, they sure have become deeper and more identifiable! It's not like that's an absolutely fucking trivial detail! Wait, yes it is, yet your reasoning is totally the opposite. Egads, could it be you don't know what you're talking about? Not to mention that you keep demanding I do things to cater for your stupid ass that you could easily do by yourself, except for the fact that, yes, you are too fucking stupid to understand. Which I've already said before, but it really bears repeating, because holy shit you're one ignorant motherfucker. Are you seriously incapable of understanding a basic concept such as "characterisation is not a series of events that happen to a character"? Rhetorical question, since you've already proved that, yes, you're seriously incapable. Of understanding what "a series of events" means. Which puts you at fucking super-tard levels. But hark! Not understanding this simple concept was a ruse. All a momentary misunderstanding! Because mere moments after failing to comprehend what characterisation is, you apparently think you know enough about it to say that CRFH has it in spades! But, sadly, not enough about it to cite an example of it. No, you need me to do that for you. Maybe because when I come up with something, you can say "no, this is bad characterisation" and oho the tables will be turned upon me as I fall before your poorly-worded assault! I know nothing of characterisation, that shall be your claim, because you said so. I'd be undone! That would be my assumption if you weren't a fucking moron, of course. Planning that shit would be totally beyond you. So it's probably more that you're as lazy as you are stupid. I love that you're trying to make me seem like an intolerant troll with a crazy agenda, but your own absolute fucking incompetence once again foils your plans and makes you continue to look like an idiot. You say "how do you give character to someone if you are not allowed to develop it in your story?" That's either misinterpreting what I said in a unique and sassy manner, or you're actually just willfully putting words in my mouth to make your position seem more credible. Either way, stupid as fuck. So "congratulation!" All you've done is argue in circles, provide zero evidence for your points (since you want ME to do that for you), make ludicrous claims and wrap the whole thing up in a wonderful package of piss-poor English. Is it any wonder I tired of you after your second comment? You're stupid, inarticulate and even if I somehow managed to go through the massive waste of time you want me to go through, you'd still be bitching about what I said. Because you love CRFH and want to jam your dick up Campos' Mexican poon, and no amount of reasoned arguments will dissuade your undying love for the "Goddess" and her excrement. Feel free to keep making an ass out of yourself here, but I'm done trying to talk to you.
- "... A BLOO BLOO BLOO." High five for the Achewood reference.
- I love it when people defend their own stuff poorly. I think part of being a responsible artist is taking criticism in stride, and ignoring it if need be. Excellent critique, although the bile-and-brimstone variety doesn't jive with me like it used to. Also, it sounds to me like the people following the strip aren't really there for the strip, but for the community. The usual forum/blog community stuff - I bet this blog already has a decent group going, and they just happen to have higher (different?) standards for webcomics. Good shit; I'll have to come back now and then.
- Characterization aside, this bitch cant write decent dialogue for her life.
- "Looks like the tables have turned! 360 degrees, more or less!" how has nobody commented re: this amazing sentence yet
- John Solomon is Charlie Brooker.
- Does that Robert Howard like everything? By the way all the links to his stuff doesn't work, does that mean you've managed to destroy Tangents? Maybe you could next leave a bomb under the car of that awful arse licking, Webcomics Awards. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "John Soloman is Charlie Brooker" Why do you have to leave this on every comments board? Despite the unlikeliness of Charlie Brooker really giving a shit about webcomics, that he'd start a blog about the worst ones. The guy's too busy slamming crap television, along with political figures.
