As I was eating breakfast this morning, I thought to myself, "You know, Mr. Solomon, you haven't so much as thought about Dominic Deegan in a while. Maybe Terracciano has actually taken some of your fine advice and improved!"
And I was wrong!
It's interesting to note how Dominic Deegan bounces between fantasy cliché and abject stupidity, occasionally doing both at the same time. There we see the upcoming big bad villain, whose design is nothing short of dire. Let's ignore the fact that his legs apparently stick right onto the waist without such nonsense as "thighs" or "hips" involved. Let's ignore that terrible LOBSTER CLAW he calls a right hand. Let's go on to the fact that I have seen strippers wearing more than someone who apparently is a "swordsman" by nature. Sorry, but a motherfucking five-year-old could kill this guy if you gave him something big and sharp enough.
Although this abysmal excuse for armour is probably explained away by the Deegan mantra when it comes to plot holes and other shit like this: a wizard did it, a wizard did it, a wizard did it. Chant with me now! That sword, which looks like Terracciano traced his housekeys? That looks like it'd probably be used for slicing bread, except he's holding the serrated edge the wrong way? That sword that looks like it's made of nerf? You want to know how that sword could possibly do anythi-a wizard did it, a wizard did it, a wizard did it!
That armour is born from the fantasy cliché that Terracciano must imbibe to survive. If he dared to be the slightest bit original, it would surely kill him, and no amount of wizards could save him then. Just look at it. I bet you it's all black. Perhaps with a little red. Why this particular colour scheme? Well, it could be that Terracciano has read up on semiotics, and perhaps leafed through the same kind of books I have. Perhaps he learned that black, red and white are not only colours that inspire feelings of strength and power, but also evil - such as in the Nazi swastika flag. It could be that he's given it that face-concealing mask because of the nature of man and the way we find something faceless to be inhuman, unstoppable and...
Actually, maybe it's because pigs fly. Terracciano hasn't read word fucking one about any of this shit, I can guarantee. Why is this "armour" (and seriously, when it covers barely 10% of your body, it is not armour) the way it is? Because Terracciano just adores copying from other sources. Black armour, face mask? Gee, I'm not sure I can name more than a thousand things that use that! If I just concern myself with anime (because Terracciano barely steals from anything else) then it's still only a few hundred!
You see, if Terracciano had read anything on the subjects I was talking about, and used the whole Jungian archetypes and semiotics thing to build up a villain borne from our collective fears, then it wouldn't look so fuckin' crappy. When I think of a walking nightmare, a dark fear given form, I don't imagine a fucking male stripper with a lobster claw and a giant housekey. Terracciano isn't even aware of what he should be doing, he's copying copies and ended up with a fucking third-generation Xerox that's just laughable.
I'd almost pity him, really, sitting all alone and trying to emulate people who are so much better than him at what he does, but still amateurs in their own right. If I saw this stupid thing striding towards me, waving the wrong side of its sword at me and clicking its lobster claw, I daresay it could probably actually hurt me. Because I'd be too busy hyperventilating with laughter. I can only imagine how much it's going to hurt to laugh at the cast of Dominic Deegan treating this flailing retard as a credible threat.
Terracciano tries so very hard to be like the shitty fantasy he admires, and the fact that he fails at being mundane cliché says more about him than I ever could. Which isn't going to stop me relentlessly mocking him, no. You see, like I said earlier, when he's not trying to be his own peculiar brand of mediocrity, he's being stupid.
Really stupid.
Your eyes do not deceive you, gentle reader. In a world of magic and swords, of elves and orcs and other overdone cliché races that should have died off with Tolkein, we have motherfucking comic books.
For those of you unfamiliar with the strange creature that is Terracciano, he likes comic books. Bad comic books, usually. He often has terrible, one-line "reviews" in his shitty little blog where he demonstrates how little he knows about well-written fiction. Anyone who knows anything about comics will cringe along with me when I tell you that the man rates All-New Atom ("this series keeps getting more enjoyable as it goes") and Flash: Fastest Man Alive ("the writing here is really, really sharp") as fantastic books. He rates them as good as Nova and The Spirit. Fuck, he even loves Countdown ("take my word that these are quality comics"), for God's sake. The man's an idiot.
Now, fantasy fiction does not have to occupy that awkwardly nonexistent medieval epoch that many stupid people think it has to. Terracciano is, surprisingly, not one of these stupid people. He is even stupider. Not only do people reside in the Dungeons & Dragons wonderland that historically never was, but their lives are laden with bizarre anachronisms that make no fucking sense.
The culture appears agrarian, but you never see any fields or farmers. It's all meadows and forests and vast areas of what Terracciano assumes is the natural state for land to be in without knowing jack shit about it. He's looked over how it's been done in anime, and failed to realise that in order for people to survive - especially his massively populated cities - you need a landscape that is almost entirely made up of fields. But, no, there's nothing there but picturesque countryside that wouldn't actually exist without mankind making it. So apparently everyone subsists on air, or Thetans, or something like that. It's the little/big rule of suspending your disbelief: you can accept that within the story, a cat can talk. But you can't accept that food just appears from nowhere for no reason.
And now you have fucking comic books, to go along with the professional sports and electric guitar rock concerts. Are people's lives really so easy in Deeganlandia? You don't have to grow food, it just appears in restaurants and shops. Your job is either to wander around in the background or be a racist strawman. Maybe you sell some of the food that magically appears in your shop. Maybe you're the one making all the shitty outfits that Deegan and his friends wear. Maybe you're one of the poorly-defined nobles who don't act like nobles ever have. Maybe you're teaching magic in a school in a world where magic doesn't need to be taught. Who knows? Who cares?
This is what you get, this is exactly what you get, when the guy in charge of penning this catastrophe of a "story" is a fucking moron with no talent. Terracciano is on the same level as a monkey in the zoo, throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. I'm sure that a comic book about a magic-using hero is some amazing fuckin' escapism in a world where every other character knows how to use magic. But, hey, why let a little thing like cohesion spoil your day? Terracciano has a story to tell, and nothing is going to get in the way of him telling that shitty little story. Not even Terracciano himself. Even though he set out to make a webcomic set in some boringly overdone medieval fantasy world, that shit isn't going to stop him throwing in retarded shit for the sake of a story! No, sir!
If you can look at this strip and not feel that Dominic Deegan is one of the worst webcomics on the Internet, then I guess you're as fucking clueless at this shit as Terracciano is himself. I mean, seriously, nobody likes Countdown.
And I was wrong!
It's interesting to note how Dominic Deegan bounces between fantasy cliché and abject stupidity, occasionally doing both at the same time. There we see the upcoming big bad villain, whose design is nothing short of dire. Let's ignore the fact that his legs apparently stick right onto the waist without such nonsense as "thighs" or "hips" involved. Let's ignore that terrible LOBSTER CLAW he calls a right hand. Let's go on to the fact that I have seen strippers wearing more than someone who apparently is a "swordsman" by nature. Sorry, but a motherfucking five-year-old could kill this guy if you gave him something big and sharp enough.
Although this abysmal excuse for armour is probably explained away by the Deegan mantra when it comes to plot holes and other shit like this: a wizard did it, a wizard did it, a wizard did it. Chant with me now! That sword, which looks like Terracciano traced his housekeys? That looks like it'd probably be used for slicing bread, except he's holding the serrated edge the wrong way? That sword that looks like it's made of nerf? You want to know how that sword could possibly do anythi-a wizard did it, a wizard did it, a wizard did it!
That armour is born from the fantasy cliché that Terracciano must imbibe to survive. If he dared to be the slightest bit original, it would surely kill him, and no amount of wizards could save him then. Just look at it. I bet you it's all black. Perhaps with a little red. Why this particular colour scheme? Well, it could be that Terracciano has read up on semiotics, and perhaps leafed through the same kind of books I have. Perhaps he learned that black, red and white are not only colours that inspire feelings of strength and power, but also evil - such as in the Nazi swastika flag. It could be that he's given it that face-concealing mask because of the nature of man and the way we find something faceless to be inhuman, unstoppable and...
Actually, maybe it's because pigs fly. Terracciano hasn't read word fucking one about any of this shit, I can guarantee. Why is this "armour" (and seriously, when it covers barely 10% of your body, it is not armour) the way it is? Because Terracciano just adores copying from other sources. Black armour, face mask? Gee, I'm not sure I can name more than a thousand things that use that! If I just concern myself with anime (because Terracciano barely steals from anything else) then it's still only a few hundred!
You see, if Terracciano had read anything on the subjects I was talking about, and used the whole Jungian archetypes and semiotics thing to build up a villain borne from our collective fears, then it wouldn't look so fuckin' crappy. When I think of a walking nightmare, a dark fear given form, I don't imagine a fucking male stripper with a lobster claw and a giant housekey. Terracciano isn't even aware of what he should be doing, he's copying copies and ended up with a fucking third-generation Xerox that's just laughable.
I'd almost pity him, really, sitting all alone and trying to emulate people who are so much better than him at what he does, but still amateurs in their own right. If I saw this stupid thing striding towards me, waving the wrong side of its sword at me and clicking its lobster claw, I daresay it could probably actually hurt me. Because I'd be too busy hyperventilating with laughter. I can only imagine how much it's going to hurt to laugh at the cast of Dominic Deegan treating this flailing retard as a credible threat.
Terracciano tries so very hard to be like the shitty fantasy he admires, and the fact that he fails at being mundane cliché says more about him than I ever could. Which isn't going to stop me relentlessly mocking him, no. You see, like I said earlier, when he's not trying to be his own peculiar brand of mediocrity, he's being stupid.
Really stupid.
Your eyes do not deceive you, gentle reader. In a world of magic and swords, of elves and orcs and other overdone cliché races that should have died off with Tolkein, we have motherfucking comic books.
For those of you unfamiliar with the strange creature that is Terracciano, he likes comic books. Bad comic books, usually. He often has terrible, one-line "reviews" in his shitty little blog where he demonstrates how little he knows about well-written fiction. Anyone who knows anything about comics will cringe along with me when I tell you that the man rates All-New Atom ("this series keeps getting more enjoyable as it goes") and Flash: Fastest Man Alive ("the writing here is really, really sharp") as fantastic books. He rates them as good as Nova and The Spirit. Fuck, he even loves Countdown ("take my word that these are quality comics"), for God's sake. The man's an idiot.
Now, fantasy fiction does not have to occupy that awkwardly nonexistent medieval epoch that many stupid people think it has to. Terracciano is, surprisingly, not one of these stupid people. He is even stupider. Not only do people reside in the Dungeons & Dragons wonderland that historically never was, but their lives are laden with bizarre anachronisms that make no fucking sense.
The culture appears agrarian, but you never see any fields or farmers. It's all meadows and forests and vast areas of what Terracciano assumes is the natural state for land to be in without knowing jack shit about it. He's looked over how it's been done in anime, and failed to realise that in order for people to survive - especially his massively populated cities - you need a landscape that is almost entirely made up of fields. But, no, there's nothing there but picturesque countryside that wouldn't actually exist without mankind making it. So apparently everyone subsists on air, or Thetans, or something like that. It's the little/big rule of suspending your disbelief: you can accept that within the story, a cat can talk. But you can't accept that food just appears from nowhere for no reason.
And now you have fucking comic books, to go along with the professional sports and electric guitar rock concerts. Are people's lives really so easy in Deeganlandia? You don't have to grow food, it just appears in restaurants and shops. Your job is either to wander around in the background or be a racist strawman. Maybe you sell some of the food that magically appears in your shop. Maybe you're the one making all the shitty outfits that Deegan and his friends wear. Maybe you're one of the poorly-defined nobles who don't act like nobles ever have. Maybe you're teaching magic in a school in a world where magic doesn't need to be taught. Who knows? Who cares?
This is what you get, this is exactly what you get, when the guy in charge of penning this catastrophe of a "story" is a fucking moron with no talent. Terracciano is on the same level as a monkey in the zoo, throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. I'm sure that a comic book about a magic-using hero is some amazing fuckin' escapism in a world where every other character knows how to use magic. But, hey, why let a little thing like cohesion spoil your day? Terracciano has a story to tell, and nothing is going to get in the way of him telling that shitty little story. Not even Terracciano himself. Even though he set out to make a webcomic set in some boringly overdone medieval fantasy world, that shit isn't going to stop him throwing in retarded shit for the sake of a story! No, sir!
If you can look at this strip and not feel that Dominic Deegan is one of the worst webcomics on the Internet, then I guess you're as fucking clueless at this shit as Terracciano is himself. I mean, seriously, nobody likes Countdown.
95 comments:
- Yawn. Move on already...
- If there's one thing I hate more than anime itself, it's horrible anime knockoffs drawn by talent-free lunchbags who can't even emulate the style properly. And that, let me tell you, is a whole bunch of hate.
- Feel so fucking glad you didn't see todays comic, I just noticed in on a daily checking of them It's sheer fucking deus ex machinaomancy. Can you at least point one one half innovative fantasy setting comic? I'm starting to doubt they even exist, but I so love fantasy if done decently.
- As much as I'd like to, I refer again to my unwritten rule of no good webcomics on the bad webcomics blog. I should really get an e-mail address so I can tell people these things in secret.
- And, no, unfortunately I did see today's pile of shit. The sole logical reason I can think of to explain this shit is that Terracciano can only orgasm when he uses awful deus ex machina. Also a mild tingling when he uses exposition to bulldoze any traces of subtlety his webcomic may otherwise have had.
- Hmmm. "Horrible anime knockoffs drawn by talent-free lunchbags"..."exposition to bulldoze any traces of subtlety"... I repeat, John: you really need to do a hatchet job on Prodigy Duck, Kris Overstreet, and their abysmal creation... http://www.themagnificentmilkmaid.com/home.html Just READ that "strip" that's the current installment. Do you think that someone has sour grapes about being turned down by TokyoPop not for being fresh and original, but for being absolute fucking shit? And is that "hilarious" punchline at the very end not the bleakest admission that there could be that this strip has no ambitions to be funny, interesting, dramatic or exciting in any way beyond getting a few morons fapping? I've said it before: it's a mess of misogyny hiding under a flimsy pretense at empowerment, it cannot do original characters (as the last few strips have made abundantly clear, but never mind, let's take some cretinous pops at the big boys of comic publishing just to show how RADICAL and DARING and ANARCHIC we are), and it's just plain dull. I realise that this is far more of a pure wank-comic than something like Lowroad, but when a wank-comic looks like it needs to struggle to give a fourteen-year-old wood, then it probably deserves a Solomon-style arse-kicking.
- Oh dear lord, why did I check out that link? I'm going to have nightmares tonight. How can anyone find girls with boobs bigger than their entire torsos attractive? ... You know, I can't help but think that if we locked Terracciano in a small room for a year, gave him several books on anatomy, stylisation, dialogue, world-building, symbolism and plot structure, he could, if he really, really tried and we threatened to cut off his food, come up with something that didn't read like it was done by an impressionable 14-year-old.
- I think if we just locked Terracciano in a small room for a year, without all that "books" and "food" nonsense, things would improve.
- If you want a comic thats just begging for trashing, Personally I'd say www.thewotch.com. You don't fucking know terrible till you have seen this, is it the more childlike then PDH drawings? The damed up sexuality that every character wants to be turned female so they can get a good dicking, normally from his still male friends? The fact that not terrible character growth went from 10 to full stop after the proofreader blinked and they got in a gay kiss? And the fanbase, oh god, you think you kicked up the ant nest of faggotry with DD? This shit would be the fucking LV-426 of it
- Mr. Solomon, I was trying to be humane! But maybe the dude really is beyond rescue. However, his ability to lap up information and regurgitate it gives me hope that he can learn how to be at least average.
- PRICELESS
- Damn right! Like I said, "Milkmaid" is about as subtle as the Blitz. Hey, guess what happens when she sucks on her own tits like that? They get even bigger! Go figure. And her weapon of choice is a huge dildo which she uses to frig her (inevitably female, inevitably titanically-busted) adversaries into submission. Such imagination.
- Fetish Comics. FETISH COMICS. FETISH COMICS! Hmm. Didn't work. Maybe we need to trick the creatrixes into saying it backwards three times...
- I cannot unsee that fucking gargantu-tits fetish comic. So much misogyny and wrongness. Gah.
- Why did you change the quote in the header :/ The old one was way better.
- Oh gods above. The next page is priceless too (not to mention, I think "origin" is meant to be "orgasm" - get a bloody dictionary). Yeesh. It's not only scary and wrong, it's also based on a premise flimsier than "a radioactive spider bit him!" Oh and I love how they stuck in the "just-turned-18" bit, so it's nice and legal.
- Yup, sulevis, "just-turned-18". Because no one reading this garbage wants to be like one of those sick little kiddy-fiddlers, nosirree, Bob. They just want to forcibly fuck overendowed moppets dressed as schoolgirls. Yeesh. Have you checked the page beyond the second one you mention there? Wherein our heroine makes the hilarious gag "never mind stacked, I'm AVALANCHED!", before saying out loud "Think I'll spend some time masturbating and exploring this new body!" For fuck's sake.
- Why did you change the quote in the header :/ The old one was way better. Because the message wasn't getting through. My own fault for assuming people can understand subtlety.
- When I think of a walking nightmare, a dark fear given form, I don't imagine a fucking male stripper with a lobster claw and a giant housekey. Well, that is pretty horrifying, though definitely not in any sort of intentional manner.
- Ha, I was wondering how long it would take you to comment again. It's actually funny to read just to see how awful it can really get.
- Thousands of terrible webcomics on the net, and you mention Dominic Deegan again. Are you trying to sound like a retard? Cause just for the record, you do. I'm beginning to wonder if you read anything else. The comic is bad, but not bad enough to review... what, 4 times now? Your obsession with this comic isn't even funny anymore, it's just a shallow mix of disturbing and boring.
- I'll admit hearing about Deegan over and over again gets a bit dull... Still, it's your blog. That's what a lot of people don't seem to understand. On fetish comics, I've always been of the passive mind-set that they can do whatever the heck they want. Not gonna float my boat, but they can just keep on trucking... However, as is the case of Goonish Shive, if the story that ties all the events together is a piece of shit there's no saving it. I'm glad that you weren't entirely "OMG GENDER SWAP DISGUSTING HAVE EM ALL SHOT!!1!1" as I'm sure many people would react to them and actually tried to look past it to the story and characters. I'm sure a lesser reviewer would've made their entire review about why these people should be put in camps.
- Thousands of terrible webcomics on the net, and you mention Dominic Deegan again. Because it's just that bad.
- Are you trying to sound like a retard? Cause just for the record, you do. Hey, quit stealing my 8-year-old little sister's schoolyard taunts! It makes her feel really sad when you don't give her credit for such a quality burn.
- God, don't even mention 'The Wotch' to me. That shit makes my eyes bleed. Here's another webcomic that needs to have it's artist/writer stabbed repeatedly in front of his readers, because damnit that's the only way he's ever going to entertain anyone. http://www.krakowstudios.com/ The man has no concept of anatomy or even basic drawing skills. And the writing lacks any coherent storyline. Something about a succubus and making fun of Russian people? Whatever.
- Seriously, why anime? As much as I loathe that shit for being so clichéd and insipid, the fact is that most real anime and manga is drawn by actual artists who have actual talent and skill and who, you know, could probably draw non-anime stuff pretty well if they wanted to. A webcomic doesn't have to have great art in order to be worthwhile. Some of my favorite webcomic artists have got pretty questionable drawing skills. They work it to their advantage, however, creating a style that is personal and unique and not just a bad fourth-generation copy of what was already bland, undifferentiated CRAP to begin with.
- John Solomon has a boner for Terracciano. He spends so much time investigating all the intricate details of why Dominic Deegan sucks not once, but three or four times (uncountable), that all the while, really, he lusts for him. And he's using the blog to vent these frustrations. Seriously, Solomon. You're not as too cool for school as you think you are. Watching you write a 2000 word essay on Dominic Deegan again is just...geez, man. You're a loser for spending too much time on this shit.
- a comic that is constantly finding new ways to be even more awful than it used to be deserves at least one good long rant making fun of it each month.
- Because it's just that bad. I agree. But come on, when are you going to tackle a big one? Yes, you did Kurtz and Buckley. And while they're both abysmal in their input, this is plain to see to any person with at least a pint of common sense(and taste); hell, even the PA guys have poked fun at Buckley. I'm sure you'll find something. Oh, and forget about Terracciano. It's obvious that guy is beyond help.
- I don't know, seeing a faceless male stripper shamble down the street, clicking his misshapen lobster-hand and silently waving a giant house key is kind of eerie. There's something so fundamentally wrong about the whole experience that you can't help but wonder what it means. Even long after he has left your sight, you just can't help but wonder what the hell you just saw
- I agree. But come on, when are you going to tackle a big one? Yes, you did Kurtz and Buckley. Is Sluggy Freelance "big" enough for you?
- Dominic Deegan is just that bad, and this shit is funny. I don't have the stomach to actually read the comic archives (my pain tolerance for godawful art is low these days), so getting to see "highlights" like the key-sword is just fabulous. And I have to disagree with you, zee. The actual majority of manga and anime (and western comics, for that matter) is drawn by hacks only slightly more talented than Terracciano. They just learn more fancy tricks to cover it up, like covering everything with so much pointless detail and sparklies that you don't realize how terrible the anatomy is, along with certain stock dramatic poses. Also it's worth noting that in the world of manga, only the stuff that is any decent quality floats to the surface, and of that, an even smaller portion makes it to the west. Given some of the shit we see over here, that is saying a lot. Just open up one of the giant manga bricks like the original Shounen Jump or Ribon and flip to the back, and you'll see horrors beyond your greatest nightmares. (I mean, I don't know, is "girl with eyes that take up 80% of her of her face" one of those Jungian fear archetypes John was talking about? It sure scares the crap out of me...)
- Writing horror is basically all about taking fears and giving them form. That can either be the base, collective fears that all humanity share - fear of the unknown and fear of death, for example - or your own personal fears, as an author. Take Lovecraft. Bitch was crazy. Was afraid of water, dogs, black people, the colour yellow and all kinds of stuff. In his work he took those fears and he gave them form. He showed us why he was afraid. He wrote about the black, timeless bottom of the ocean, a sunless void that held creatures far older than man. He made us afraid of what he was afraid of, by giving it a name and a shape. Writers have been doing this for years, whether they exclusively do horror or not. They take mankind's fears, or their own, and make characters out of them. Look at zombies: fear of death incarnate. Because they are death. They are the dead that kill. They are also us, as we are afraid of ourselves. They are the ones who got bitten, our ancestors and family, our people returned as monsters. All Terracciano's done is deck out an old character in S&M fetish gear. He hasn't the faintest fucking idea how to write beyond the Goddamn kindergarten level of putting words together. He's a shame to the term "writer". Which is why I only call him a hack.
- He actually liked Fastest Man Alive? WTF?! That shit was terrible!
- All Terracciano's done is deck out an old character in S&M fetish gear. Worse, he decked the character out in what he *thinks* S&M gear looks like. I wonder how he expects the dude to breathe with a metal plate squashed against his nose and mouth.
- Hey gang, let's play "Who's the Bigger Loser?" Contestant No. 1: Mookie Spends hundreds of hours of his life writing and drawing a bad webcomic. And makes a [i]living[/i] off of it. Contestant No. 2: John Solomon Spends hundreds of hours of his life criticizing Mookie's bad webcomic in blogs, forums, and a shitty parody webcomic. And gets paid [i]dick[/i] for it. Congratulations, John Solomon!
- I'm a fucking moron not just because I read the comic, but absorbed it so I know its story. The S&M tard in question IS supposed to be some corrupted demonic petitioner, man made demon and also a slave to real demons, so there could be a million fear filled interpretations and philosophical themes it could inspire. It's just Terracciano (Where is this name from anyway? Is it his real one or mockery I'm missing) is a hack writer who couldn't imagine one of these things, let alone use them. He'll just wave his Bizarro keyblade about they good him again (Calling right now that they use the never before mentioned plannerpathy or whatever because it hasn't been used yet, and what else could it be? Needless fluff? FOR WIZARDS? Ahaha.)
- Hey gang, let's play "Who's the Bigger Loser?" Contestant No. 3: The guy who thinks that his brilliant zing is actually going to make Solomon stop and think "hey, I should quit" contrary to all evidence so far.
- Good day Mr. Solomon: You yourself admit that you can't draw. Your blog neatly demonstrates your inability to write very well, either. Or engage in a rational discussion. And it also reveals your personality is for shit. Christ, for your sake I hope you're rich or good looking or at least a good dancer because you've got fuck-all else going for you. Solomon. Solo man. Yes, it's a fitting nickname. Because if ever there was a man destined to remain ALONE for the remainder of his meaningless, wretched excuse for a life, that man is YOU.
- He's actually a pretty good writer, you flaming nonce. This blog gives me a good solid laugh every time I visit it. The people responsible for the abominations you review need to be stopped, or at least hurt badly. So don't stop.
- If you need more webcomics to criticise, I got a list for you. Although , you might actually have plans to use your time for less masochistic hobbies. 8-Bit Theater Angel Moxie Perry Bible Fellowship Abstract Gender The Wild Adventures Of Trunks And Soto The Backyard Adventures Of Moe And Ron Commisioned Kazei 5: Rebirth
- Three posts above me? Now THAT'S funny. Though not for the reasons the author might have intended. Spelling's awfully good for something typed through bitter tears of impotent rage, though.
- Also, reflecting on the assertion that this terrible comic actually earns a living for its author... what the hell is up with people sucking down turds and proclaiming they taste like candy? Is art with any competence, style and beauty simply too rich for your system? Why would you give something like this a second look, and WHY FOR GOD'S SAKE do you insist on defending something so indefensible? I'd never heard of D*m*n*c D**g*n before I stumbled over this blog, but I think it may be the worst-drawn strip I've ever seen. It looks like it was photocopied directly from some slow middle-schooler's Civics notebook. Seriously, what's the appeal? You can't even jerk off to this stuff. And if you DO, no one wants to hear about it, trust me.
- "If you need more webcomics to criticise, I got a list for you. Although , you might actually have plans to use your time for less masochistic hobbies. Perry Bible Fellowship" PBF is one of the most consistently brilliant, well-drawn comics on the internet, and therefore I can only assume that "Habitman" is too dumb to get any of the humor.
- Some people apparently have difficulty differentiating between comics that they dislike for highly personal reasons, and comics that are so bad that they make Baby Jesus cry. If you don't get Perry Bible Fellowship, consider returning to school to complete your GED, alright?
- i like the way you keep going after dominic deegan. it's secure and comforting, like a warm blanket that your mom keeps trying to throw away but you dig it out of the trashcan and cuddle with it even though it has wet granola and coffee grounds and crumbs on it now :)
- i made the mistake of clicking on that MILKMAID link. oh the horror... i especially like how he's got a character called Chocolate Milkmaid who spews chocolate milk from her nipples and some sort of creepy "chibi" character with gigantic basketball sized boobs. i think i read once on POE that this guy borrowed money from his GRANDMOTHER to publish this shit.
- john solomon is like the punisher; he goes after shitty webcomic turds because he hates them, and he just won't stop until they kill him, however much it hurts dominic deegan plainly makes him incandescent with rage, and who can blame him? it really is extremely, extremely very fucking awful, like holy shit it's so bad on just about every conceivable level. the only comics i can think of that's worse are "kit 'n' kay boodle" (DON'T LOOK FOR IT, EVER) and "stalag 99", coincidentally (not really) both furry comics. anyway, i for one applaud "solo man"'s one-man crusade against mediocrity and fan-fellatio, even though it is apparently a soul rape cybercrime against wah baby internet law. also, third comment down, trel: "finder" by carla speed mcneil is an excellent, very original webcomic in a fantasy setting, though not swords and sorcery. actually it used to be an indie print comic that moved to web, like what "girl genius" did get it here (look to the right and click "today's page: read it now"): http://www.lightspeedpress.com/
- Just a quick thought for the people saying "wah loser why do you have a hardon for DD, etc.". As a reader, I like this blog not because I read any of the horrible comics reviewed by JS, but for the same reason I like the Awful Link of the Day on Something Awful - for laughs. Who cares if it's DD again, or any other shitty comic? As for the blog entry, the drawing of the evil guy with the key-sword reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite's fantasy drawings, somehow. As for the other page linked - what the FUCK? Why does the title of the Supermage comic bleed out of the panel borders? That's just horrible. Maybe a wizard did it.
- Good day Mr. Solomon: You yourself admit that you can't draw. Your blog neatly demonstrates your inability to write very well, either. Or engage in a rational discussion. And it also reveals your personality is for shit. Christ, for your sake I hope you're rich or good looking or at least a good dancer because you've got fuck-all else going for you. Solomon. Solo man. Yes, it's a fitting nickname. Because if ever there was a man destined to remain ALONE for the remainder of his meaningless, wretched excuse for a life, that man is YOU. good day the faggot is actually you good day
- Don't discourage the morons who think they're suave and witty! Where else am I going to get my laughs?
- His hand is clearly not a lobster claw- three fingers are hidden behind the first finger.
- There are many reasons to hate Dominic Deegan- but the fact that the comic doesn't have a realistic agricultural system in it is a pretty stupid one.
- His hand is clearly not a lobster claw- three fingers are hidden behind the first finger. There's nothing "clear" about it, except that it's "clearly" a lobster claw.
- There are many reasons to hate Dominic Deegan- but the fact that the comic doesn't have a realistic agricultural system in it is a pretty stupid one. I don't hate it because Terracciano is a fucking mongoloid city-trog who believes meat comes naturally shrink-wrapped from behind the deli counter. I just think it's a symptom of the fact that Terracciano can't write fantasy for shit. His people are living in a D&D-type world that's full of professional sports, comic books and electric guitars. Electric guitars. I'm not sure how "magic lightning hits acoustic guitar" works exactly, because it doesn't. Terracciano is a hack writer and a shitty artist, all I'm doing is chronicling the many, many reasons he's so fucking terrible.
- "a character called Chocolate Milkmaid who spews chocolate milk from her nipples" Even better still, Chocolate Milkmaid is - ho ho - get this - BLACK! Pretty funny name, huh? Sheesh. Why they didn't just call her Coon, Nigger, or Sambo Milkmaid, I'll never know. And yeah, that chibi character with flesh volleyballs on her chest is pretty fucking queasy. Note again the "I'm over 18, honest" get-out used in one of the strips.
- His hand is clearly not a lobster claw- three fingers are hidden behind the first finger. That's what he wants you to believe, but it's a lie to excuse artistic laziness. Stand before a mirror and try to actually get your fingers hidden that way. It isn't actually possible, because of a thing called perspective.
- I'd say you were wasting your breath, except you're typing over the internert rather than talking, so you're wasting your... data? I dunno. But you're wasting something, because you're trying to reason with a Deeganite, and reasoning with a Deeganite is possibly the most futile thing a man can do with his time. You can't change their mind, because they don't have a mind to change. They like Deegan, after all.
- To the comments: So because I don't find PBF funny, that makes me unintelligent? Don't get me wrong, a few of them have gotten a laugh out of me, and I do read it on occasion, but the jokes always fall into either the "sexual joke lololol" or "OMG that person's being cruel haw haw" categories. It just gets old. To John: Keep up the great work. I've found this blog to be more entertaining than some of the last few. There's so much bad in DD that it deserves all the hate you spew at it. When I saw the SUPERHERO pop into it, my first thought was "John's gonna mention this, I just know it. AND IT WILL BE AWESOME."
- You obviously haven't read PBF in a long time. The beginning ones are like that, true.
- PBF isn't about "crude joke/sexual humour" it's about entirely changing the audience perspective in the last panel. This is a really clever idea, one that I've only seem them do.
- "So because I don't find PBF funny, that makes me unintelligent?" Yes. Yes it does.
- Peter said... the only comics i can think of that's worse are "kit 'n' kay boodle" (DON'T LOOK FOR IT, EVER) and "stalag 99", coincidentally (not really) both... ahahahaha I've met the guy who does stalag 99. He is just as much of a socially inept geekatron as you would think he is. We are vaguely ashamed to know him. Also, PBF is the shit.
- The guy does a comic a day. That's a lot of work. Obviously they can't all be gems now can they? although I do admit the recent "Pam being pissed off at the Deegans" has left me totally confused. Her boyfriend saved the day, the town, is unhurt and all that, so why is she angry? Lacks sense.
- They all can't be gems, no, but none of them are gems. They are all turds. Also, Pam is pissed at them so Terracciano can cram the comic with exposition to fill in the plot holes and get his forum going "OH~~~ MOOKIE-SAMA, SUGOI WRITER DESU!!!" People showing emotion = deep writing, after all. Didn't you get the memo?
- I'm going to predict that John will never, ever mention PBF in this blog.
- "Also, Pam is pissed at them so Terracciano can cram the comic with exposition to fill in the plot holes and get his forum going "OH~~~ MOOKIE-SAMA, SUGOI WRITER DESU!!!"" which forum? the cocksucking live journal forum, the "fan forum" owned by a hard leaning right republican diaper furry, or the one where everyone is pretty much a troll and bashes the comic? I've gotta be honest. The concept of the comic had a lot of potential (grumpy pipe smoking guy who can see the future) but now everything about the comic just makes me want it to just stop. Even the fans are fucking lunatics. They'll tell you that you should be grateful for the free daily updates, but the comic is only daily because he quit his job a few years ago and raised like 7 grand off of the site in one month. how the fuck is that free?
- I'm not a fan of Deegan. But you have to admit, even if the author is a lazy writer and lazier artist, he admits it wholeheartedly. Pandering to the same denominator as romance novels and cheap fantasy trilogies is surefire money. At least he doesn't try to justify it as art or anything other than glorified wanking, like some.
- Thinking about this entry in your blog, I've only got one thing to say: Farmland? Isn't that reaching a bit for material, man? I mean, yeah, you're right and all, but I live in the midwest, and though this area is mostly farmland, I could still walk fifteen miles to the nearest town without ever leaving the woods. Perhaps is just a suspension of disbelief thing. Either way, DD sucks pretty hard. Admittedly, I used to read it when I was bored, but stopped when it turned into cheesecake AND bullshit. I can only take one or the other.
- You live in a modern era, it's not comparable. Look at the English countryside, which still bears the marks of several thousand years of agriculture. You'll find little in the way of wild spaces that haven't been purposefully left that way. You will, however, find miles and miles of fields. If Dominic Deegan's supposed to be set in a medieval world, then all these huge towns and cities should need support. Old London used to bring in carts and carts full of goods: sacks of flour, crates of live poultry, so on and so forth. But in Dominic Deegan, everyone walks. The cities are so neat and clean, which is stupid for a place that should be importing dozens of cattle per day. There's not so much of a trace of shit on the streets, which is kinda funny considering how shit everything else about the webcomic is. Perhaps it's just not something you get, but it's jarring nonetheless. It's like drawing modern-day Manhattan with streets that are devoid of all cars and pedestrians, and also the place has no coffee shops but the whole cast go around drinking coffee all the time with no explanation of how they got it. If Terracciano wants people to fawn over the world he's made, he could start by doing a better fucking job of knowing what the fuck he's doing. If he wants to be taken seriously and not have me talk about what a wretched excuse of a human being he is, then he's got to start somewhere.
- Ayep. If your schtick is deep story and/or worldbuilding, criticisms from that angle are valid. Of course, farmland is a laughable reason to condemn a comic by itself. However it's only one of many arguments, and it's only being used as an example of the gaps in worldbuilding in the comic.
- The Last Anon to post here again... Yeah, no that makes sense when you put it that way. I guess I was looking at it from a different light. As I said, it seems to me like the worlds created in fantasy would seem a bit pedantic if they spent more than just a passing glance on the amount of corn grown in them. I defiantly wouldn't go so far as to call it 'jarring', but it WOULD make more sense to have like... a farmer's market and some withered old hillbilly selling squash from a cart, right? At the same time, there's two types of fantasy; light and heavy. You've got your Dragonlance on one side, and your Songs of Ice and Fire on the other. The trade off is that one focuses on high adventure for want of world building, while the other focuses on the complexities of setting as opposed to 'let's go kills us some dragons!' Yeah, Dominic Deegan fits into neither category, but really, if the economy IS so much of a distraction, I'm curious (from the standpoint of someone who is apparently too damn stupid to think that a webcomic needs to talk about the amount of golden, rippling wheat fields that exist within it) as to how you'd insert an explanation without it feeling distracting and just plain boring. Roadside squash stands, perhaps?
- Well, if it was me, I'd start by looking up both modern and medieval farmer's markets, researching how the towns worked and generally getting a feel for what I should be doing. That sounds like a lot, but it'd take maybe an hour with Google/Wikipedia or an afternoon at the library to cement the entire look of the thing for years to come. This is what good writers and good artists actually do. We look shit up. I ain't about to write about some guy having been poisoned by arsenic without looking up the symptoms. I don't assume that, for example, when you get a British knighthood you're also given a special ID card (fuckin' Dan Brown). I'm gonna make sure I know this. If I was an artist, I wouldn't just draw what I assumed the Eiffel Tower looked like. I wouldn't stick the Statue of Liberty in Chesapeake Bay because, hey, same country, right? Terracciano has already made aspects of his world vital to the story, and wants people to accept it as a living and breathing world. Probably because he has a delusional level of confidence in his own skills. His nonexistent skills. But he wants the reader to think that this place, Deeganlandia, is real. But it can't be, because he just doesn't show it the right way. It's nothing more than a town right out of Final Fantasy: you have YE ACADAMIE OF MAGICK, the town hall, an inn, some shops and the rest are just building_a and building_b. They're there for visual flavour only. Sure, okay, a lack of farms isn't a major flaw that Dominic Deegan has. But it is, like sandals said, indicative of a greater flaw: that the entire world is shoddily made and a bit crap. Besides, this is entry #3 on Deegan. I've already covered the bigger flaws in the other two entries.
- Shit... so my ID card isn't REAL?!
- Yeah, mine neither. What a ripoff.
- So, does this mean you won't review Magnificent Milkmaid?
- John, Have you ever heard of the phrase "suspension of disbelief"? It means forgetting about all the practical stuff, and enjoying something for what it gives you, as opposed to over-analyzing it. Mookie's not the best writer, and he's not the best artist, but he's not the crappiest one out there, as you continue to insist. You don't seem to understand the webcomic medium very well. You simply *can't* include everything. He's never had a reason to show or talk about peasants and farmland, so it hasn't shown up. Webcomics are very limited in the scope of what they can present at any one time. The fact that he hasn't shown us something doesn't mean it's not there. And as for the villain in fake BDSM gear that is a pitiful excuse for armor - of course it wouldn't do jack shit! But that's not the point. The point is that it creates a character that is obviously bad. That's all that is needed. The comic doesn't need to be deep, it doesn't need to be fully fledged. It just needs to amuse every once in a while. If Dominic Deegan were a novel, I would expect a great deal more depth and description out of it. But as a comic that has a total of 100 words a day (maximum) with which to both advance the story and make a self contained strip, he doesn't have the room to do everything. Anyway. You've made your point, and people can either agree with it. But stop calling those of us that choose to continue reading Dominic Deegan idiots. There are plenty of other comics I've long since given up on. Dominic Deegan at least continues to have a story and update regularly. That's better than can be said for many comics out there. Give it up. You're beating a dead horse.
- This might be somewhat after the fact, but I think this page of the comic is much more offensive than the one provided at the end of Mr. Solomon's review. http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2007-07-18
- Hm.. if you guys are beginning to wonder why John Solomon chooses to rip on some comics, and not others, I think I'm beginning to notice some of his basic guidelines. (1) Comic has to generally be Work Safe. That'd throw out a lot of the racier webcomics out there. I think heavy cussing is where he's drawing the line on what he links to... or at least, implied loli-orc rape. (2) The creators have to be committing one of several Crimes Against teh Internets, not just making a lackluster webcomic. Unwarranted Self Importance, a variety of Mary-Sue Characters, or merely being Bat$#!+ Insane. So a good part of it is drawing the ire of Solomon based on some run-in at some point. Maybe John does alot of conventions, and notices the drama revolving around these specific creators, maybe not. I'm guessing that if you draw like crap, but are still a generally cool person, John will leave you alone. (3) You have to be a bit lower, a bit worse, a bit more gawdawfully crap-tastic than the other 90% of KeenSpot repository of all generically indistinguishable webcomics, apparently. Continuous Wish-Fulfillment stories help. Like setting your comic in a comic book store, toy store, game shop, etc. (4) John has to find them, and find them rant-worthy himself. If he went on votes/suggestions, soon every other webcomic creatrix would be spamming him for reviews on how #$!+ty their work is, just so they can prove how 'with it' they are and going along with 'the joke'. He already had that incident pop up, and it equals automatic rejection and NO LINKS FOR YOU! Well, these seem to be a few of the chief criteria to draw out John's ire. I may be wrong, but if that helps the readers, so be it. (Scrolls up.. wow.... really didn't meant he post to be that long...)
- Have you ever heard of the phrase "suspension of disbelief"? It means forgetting about all the practical stuff, and enjoying something for what it gives you, as opposed to over-analyzing it. Apparently you've never heard of the phrase "suspension of disbelief" because that's not what it means. Go back to sucking Terracciano's itsy-bitsy dick, you gormless halfwit.
- This post has been removed by the author.
- Wahey! More fun with the shiteness that is Milkmaid... http://www.themagnificentmilkmaid.com/home.html Translation: "we couldn't think of anything at all interesting to do in the last few weeks but weren't we so LOL CHEESE MONKEY FUCKING RANDOM LOLZZZZZ now back to the fapping material." Fucking crap.
- Michael Terracciano - God of Fail
- good sir, thank you. you've shown me the errors of my ways, and henceforth i shall cease reading dominic deegan or however the fuck you spell it. maybe over time, i'll get my missing IQ points back...
- Hi It pains me to see that most of the webcomics you've sent to fuck off here are webcomics I read on a regular basis. and yeah, I'm gonna disagree with you, for starters in your notion of "good writing" it doesn't seem to exist, I want to expose a case I think is good writing, and that you described as "literacy rape", that's the one of Dominic Deegan. You said it was crap because of it's simplicity, but I don't think the whole Good vs. Evil isn't so bad if you pull it off right, also you just seem to read webcomics in order to be able to criticize them. for example, you missed the fact that at the moment the orc female mentions Luna the alterist, she has overcome her depression, and that, for starters, she was just depressed because nobody loved her, or the thing about the rape, you have to take into acount that Mookie is creating a culture (I won't deny it's based on Warcraft) and that he designed it so that the way they spoused was to be with eachother (in a biblical sense. you also make some understandable critics, but to say that he hasn't advanced from his Dragon ball Z Phase is not true. that's about Dominic Deegan. Now HDP IS something I'd call literacy rape (in a good way), the only thing I can say about the webcomic is it's hardcore, the art is crappy though. But the concept's good. By the way, if you want to revew an art style that has had almost zero improvement since it's begginings revew Megatokyo, although the story 's good and the art's not bad
- what.
- you have to take into acount that Mookie is creating a culture Hahaha. No.
- Ooh ooh, he's doing another Dramatic and Meaningful storyline! Since extra-healer-chick cheated on werewolf-guy with angry sword-dude making him go to Hell! And Dominic knew and didn't tell anyone! Can you imagine the tension there? I just wonder what kind of deus ex machina Dominic is going to pull from his voluminous nether parts to make everything better this time! And oh, the sweet, satisfying Resolution as chick and werewolf get past their differences and learn to Forgive each other, perhaps with some exaggerated tears and fortunately off-camera yiffing! Maybe sword-dude will get out of Hell, even! Or, even better, maybe he'll try to take over the world, but Dominic, through sheer force of being nice and persuasion and maybe showing sword-dude just how much pain he's caused, will make him stop! Wouldn't that be just so... contrived? That's like the only reason I read DD anymore. To make fun of it in my head. It may have some good themes, but it is SO freakin' over the top.
- Is that bad guy wearing a shirt? Cause if he isn't wear the hell are his nipples? I mean i suppose a wizard could have removed them, but why?
- although I do admit the recent "Pam being pissed off at the Deegans" has left me totally confused. Her boyfriend saved the day, the town, is unhurt and all that, so why is she angry? Lacks sense. He made Nurse Mayor Pam react in that ridiculous way because he recently got dumped. He thinks the reason he got dumped was because he was putting too much of his time and effort into comics, and not paying attention to his ladyfriend. In reality she dumped him because he is an idiot, but that's beside the point. What I am trying to say here is, this is clearly a matter of him projecting/using things from his personal life in his comic strip. He feels like his ex-gf broke up with him for getting too into his shitty comic. So a character in his comic gets in trouble with his girlfriend for getting too into comic books (and not letting her in on the plan etc). As for getting mad at Dominic. I think this was a clever plan to get me interested in the comic by trying to get back to what I thought, initially, was a decent premise: A mean guy trying to read people's fortunes for money. As it turned out he just bated me into another terrible storyline involving schlocky shocks and terribly rendered female characters (I mean, of COURSE it wasn't CLAW-HAND McSKELETON KEY's fault he went to hell. It had to be the girl's fault. Just like Luna needs a man to feel worthwhile, and Melna fell in love with her rapist. All terrible terrible female characters).
- I used to read dominic deegan regularly. untill i fell behind and realised that catching up on the archives is more of a chore. for a comic that is supposed to be entertaining (ideally, the aim of all 'literature' especially that in cartoon form) it hasnt so much as made me even think of smiling. let alone actually laugh at one of deegans "Jokes" or even be remotely engaged in the story, save to mechanically read each strip and click next, and during the loading time, vaguely consider suicide as an alternative to continuing this monotony (that was a joke, but not THAT far removed from reality). Also, John Sol', in your focus on the kiddie rape story arc, i think you've neglected the gold mine of criticism to be found in the dozens of 'crying in the rain' scenes scattered through the archives. mmmmm melodrama. epic no? and something else just occurred to me about Mookies overall theme of an all-seeing, (self proclaimed) justice of the peace. seems like an Orwellian invasion of privacy. but anyway. out of interest, are there any webcomics you actually enjoy? if not, i dont really see the motivation in you writing a blog criticising bad comics. if you dont read any, then whats it to you?
- There are webcomics I like, and they are good webcomics, much in the same way as the webcomics I don't like are bad webcomics. But like I said on this very page, I do not discuss them here.
- fair 'nuff
- John Solomon has a bigger dick than any of you DD faggots.
