Perhaps I was inspired by doing Cartridge Comics recently, but my horrible black heart has started to hiss with loathing against gaming webcomics. One of these is Half-Masked. I'm not sure I need to say this, but it's a bad webcomic.
Let's begin by some generalisations about the whole deal, before going in to specifics. See, I don't know who makes this pile of shit. Not beyond a name: Alex Hill. Mr. Hill (assuming you're not an Alexandra) you are responsible for a fucking terrible webcomic. Feel ashamed of yourself. Also maybe tell me more about yourself so I can make some fat jokes or whatever, and you can dismiss this review as "personal attacks" and breathe a sigh of relief because that way you can ignore all the actual criticism in it.
The site is bland. Bland. On the one side, that's pretty good. A lot of shitty webcomics are shitty because they have shitty site designs. Crappy backgrounds, a billion images, the obligatory Paypal and "VOTE FOR ME" buttons. Why would anyone vote for you? I mean, even if they ignore the fact you're shit, those ratings sites are fucking useless. It's just a "which webcomic offers shitty sketches of the main female characters naked/scantily-clad as incentive" contest. Anyway, a plain and simple site design is usually the hallmark of a good webcomic, though there are exceptions. People, it's not rocket science. Stuff like gargantuan title images that force the reader to scroll down to see the actual strip, everything being off-centre or some weird alignment... don't do that shit.
Half Masked's design manages to be simplistic because it's a template. A really, really simple template that wasn't made for a webcomic. Hell, it's the Goddamn default template, for crying out loud. That says "lazy" in a way that's only backed up by the content. The title is nothing but "Half-Masked" in Goddamn Arial, centred in the middle of a lovely round-cornered blue box direct from Web 2.0's asshole. The best part is the page title, as it shows up on the title bar or the tab (whatever), is "Half Masked". Hill, it's either got a hyphen or it don't. Make up your mind.
Ignoring the comic itself for the moment (and oh how I wish I could ignore it forever) we scroll down to the bottom. There's a previous button, a drop-down menu and... and... uh, nothing much else. No first button, even though that's practically a requisite - and going back a ways will show you there's no latest button either. The archives list is comprised entirely of the drop-down menu, which is fucking atrocious. Seriously. Penny Arcade does this and it's a major black spot on an otherwise halfway decent site layout.
But wait! What's this? Right at the bottom is a link saying Administration Panel. Clicking on it takes us to a login page and this message:
Well, stop me if I'm wrong, but surely having a MAJOR security risk open to every Tom, Dick and John Solomon who comes along is rather... what's the word I'm looking for here... oh, right - fucking retarded.
Excuse me while I make another "personal attack" here, but I feel this review must come to a halt while I ask what kind of Goddamn idiot you have to be to make a site this fucking poorly designed. Honestly! On the plus side, I guess this ups the odds of some altruistic script kiddie doing his civic duty and wrecking the shit out of this fucking abysmal site and its terrible webcomic contents.
And, oh, the contents. It can be safely said that Half-Masked panders to the "gaming culture" demographic who enjoy reading trite shit that isn't funny. Let's get to some examples!
Strip number one is a pretty standard first strip when it comes to shitty gaming webcomics. You have some ZANY characters (a robot - and a MONKEY?! oh this is Shakespearian, sir!) who appear to have been drawn by someone using Photoshop as a substitute for their more natural medium, MS Paint. Although let's be fair, MS Paint ain't shit when it comes to doing the poor man's equivalent of talent: GRADIENT FILLS.
The comic font is Arial, or some other kind of sans serif font, which leads me to believe that Mr. Alex Hill either has no concept what a decent comic font is, or just has nothing available to him but sans serif due to some kind of font embargo upon his native homeland. There's also the option that, faced with choosing a font appropriate for his webcomic (a very crucial choice, let no one tell you otherwise) he decided to go with something as bland and boring as the strip itself. I'm reaching here, yes, but let's award him a little credit for not using Comic Sans.
Strip number two is a sprite comic. Despite the presence of customised sprites, which lifts it from "bottom of the barrel" status to "almost bottom of the barrel" status, it's still shit. What makes matters worse is that there's no joke. I defy you to try and find one, even hiding. I analysed every pixel to see if it was encoded in binary into the image itself - no luck. But this strip has served some kind of meagre purpose, for we learn the name of one of the characters. The robot is called Phantos. That horrible mask in SMB2 was called Phanto, maybe it's a reference. I don't know. I don't care.
Strip number three. Terrible. Awful. Protip, Hill: the top of a human ear is level with the eye. The top. Not the bottom. Not the middle. Also, people have noses and fingers and don't look like googly-eyed Japanese muppets. Also nice job copy-pasting the first two panels and cunningly avoiding it seeming that way by flipping the guy's head. Even though it means his spikey animu hair spikes to the wrong side. Oops! Oh well, let's move on, but not before admiring more of those fucking awesome gradient fills. Mmm, baby.
Strip number four is another sprite one, and just as terrible. No, it's worse, because Mr. Hill looked at that first sprite one and actually thought "You know what? I should make another of these."
Not that I'm going to analyse the myriad of flaws in every single strip he's done (he's done 124, which is about 176 too many) but I have to call attention to strip number five for at least one reason. That reason is that it does not sit within the bland template. Remember when I was talking about site design? Another good thing to remember is that you should avoid your comic just hanging out of the nice, crisp edges that someone else designed. But really, that and the fact that the strip isn't funny is eclipsed by the welcome return of those gradients. They're the reason the sprite shit should stop, Hill. Stick with your strengths. Gradient fills. Oh yeah.
Number six is a sprite comic that relies upon Megaman-based humour that even Bob and George wouldn't touch. Well, I dunno, Bob and George was pretty fucking shitty. I'll call it a tie. Number seven is some of that MONKEY CHEESE RANDOM type humour that isn't actually humour and I will fucking kill anyone who says so. This is immediately followed by a cruel irony, as they talk about "random humour" being stupid.
It continues to alternate between shitty sprite strip and shitty Photoshop-drawn strip (with gradients) for a while. I'd say both are equally awful and unfunny, but gosh darn it if I don't approve of all those gradient fills. Who the fuck needs to learn about shading and shadows and highlights when Photoshop can do all the work for you? Hot damn!
"Oh, John Solomon-sama!" I hear you exclaiming. "You baka. These are the first strips, surely after much genki hard work, Half-Masked has become suupa sugoi webukomiku-chwan!"
Ha ha! Balls to that. It gets worse, it gets worse, it gets worse. Here's another piece of advice, Mr. Hill: when you have to number narration panels so people know what order to read them in, you should be instead thinking how best to make a layout that isn't a fucking confusing shitpile. Perhaps, I don't know, by making the comic strip a little bigger.
I'm clicking through at random here (a little difficult due to the fucking joke of an archives page - sorry, drop-down menu) and all I see is shit. Chibi monkeys? Chibi monkeys? And, oh, a fucking terrible attempt at wordplay. Fantastic. That's on the same level as Dominic Deegan, I hope you're happy. There's only one redeeming feature about it, and that's that you didn't pluralise monkey as "monkies".
Again, shit. Not only for the mangling of otherwise decent, upstanding swearwords (leave the swearing to us professionals, you stupid cunt) but for the one thing that is most telling about an artist's lack of artistic talent. Not the ever-present gradients, no. Not the abuse of Photoshop filters, no. It's trying to draw a famous person and failing miserably at it. Artists work from sources, and gee golly I'm not sure if there are enough pictures of Christopher Judge on the Internet to qualify. A mere two hundred thousand?!?! Bah, with such a minimal supply, it's no wonder Mr. Hill couldn't get down such complicated details as the basic shape of the man's head.
(Christopher Judge has a wonderfully round head, Hill's attempt is distressingly angular. Also blue-eyed, for some freakish reason. Blue gradient.)
But all right. We can let that pass. After all, if you can't draw men, women (ugh), little girls (double ugh) and pretty much everything else under the sun, who can fault you for not being able to draw someone looking remotely like what they should look like? I can, that's who. Because your comic is a bad webcomic, a terrible webcomic, an unfunny morass of hypocritical crap, stolen jokes and lousy art that I could easily improve upon by wiping my Goddamn ass on it. When you dream of writing for fucking Family Guy then there's no hope for you.
Three things: first, gradient fills are not shading. Second, you can't draw anyway, so don't bother with the gradient fills. Third, you can't tell any kind of joke there is - even the ones you take from other people you fuck up beyond all entertainment value. The only thing I ask of you is to keep doing comics like this one, but make them waaaay less wordy.
Mr. Hill, as little as I know you, your inexcusable lack of talent and your creepy fetish for gradients, I know this: you should just stop trying to be creative since apparently you lack the ability to do it in any form. Your webcomic is bad. You should feel bad.
Let's begin by some generalisations about the whole deal, before going in to specifics. See, I don't know who makes this pile of shit. Not beyond a name: Alex Hill. Mr. Hill (assuming you're not an Alexandra) you are responsible for a fucking terrible webcomic. Feel ashamed of yourself. Also maybe tell me more about yourself so I can make some fat jokes or whatever, and you can dismiss this review as "personal attacks" and breathe a sigh of relief because that way you can ignore all the actual criticism in it.
The site is bland. Bland. On the one side, that's pretty good. A lot of shitty webcomics are shitty because they have shitty site designs. Crappy backgrounds, a billion images, the obligatory Paypal and "VOTE FOR ME" buttons. Why would anyone vote for you? I mean, even if they ignore the fact you're shit, those ratings sites are fucking useless. It's just a "which webcomic offers shitty sketches of the main female characters naked/scantily-clad as incentive" contest. Anyway, a plain and simple site design is usually the hallmark of a good webcomic, though there are exceptions. People, it's not rocket science. Stuff like gargantuan title images that force the reader to scroll down to see the actual strip, everything being off-centre or some weird alignment... don't do that shit.
Half Masked's design manages to be simplistic because it's a template. A really, really simple template that wasn't made for a webcomic. Hell, it's the Goddamn default template, for crying out loud. That says "lazy" in a way that's only backed up by the content. The title is nothing but "Half-Masked" in Goddamn Arial, centred in the middle of a lovely round-cornered blue box direct from Web 2.0's asshole. The best part is the page title, as it shows up on the title bar or the tab (whatever), is "Half Masked". Hill, it's either got a hyphen or it don't. Make up your mind.
Ignoring the comic itself for the moment (and oh how I wish I could ignore it forever) we scroll down to the bottom. There's a previous button, a drop-down menu and... and... uh, nothing much else. No first button, even though that's practically a requisite - and going back a ways will show you there's no latest button either. The archives list is comprised entirely of the drop-down menu, which is fucking atrocious. Seriously. Penny Arcade does this and it's a major black spot on an otherwise halfway decent site layout.
But wait! What's this? Right at the bottom is a link saying Administration Panel. Clicking on it takes us to a login page and this message:
Xcomic has detected register_globals to be on; this is a MAJOR security risk. PLEASE contact your webhost and have them disable it.
Well, stop me if I'm wrong, but surely having a MAJOR security risk open to every Tom, Dick and John Solomon who comes along is rather... what's the word I'm looking for here... oh, right - fucking retarded.
Excuse me while I make another "personal attack" here, but I feel this review must come to a halt while I ask what kind of Goddamn idiot you have to be to make a site this fucking poorly designed. Honestly! On the plus side, I guess this ups the odds of some altruistic script kiddie doing his civic duty and wrecking the shit out of this fucking abysmal site and its terrible webcomic contents.
And, oh, the contents. It can be safely said that Half-Masked panders to the "gaming culture" demographic who enjoy reading trite shit that isn't funny. Let's get to some examples!
Strip number one is a pretty standard first strip when it comes to shitty gaming webcomics. You have some ZANY characters (a robot - and a MONKEY?! oh this is Shakespearian, sir!) who appear to have been drawn by someone using Photoshop as a substitute for their more natural medium, MS Paint. Although let's be fair, MS Paint ain't shit when it comes to doing the poor man's equivalent of talent: GRADIENT FILLS.
The comic font is Arial, or some other kind of sans serif font, which leads me to believe that Mr. Alex Hill either has no concept what a decent comic font is, or just has nothing available to him but sans serif due to some kind of font embargo upon his native homeland. There's also the option that, faced with choosing a font appropriate for his webcomic (a very crucial choice, let no one tell you otherwise) he decided to go with something as bland and boring as the strip itself. I'm reaching here, yes, but let's award him a little credit for not using Comic Sans.
Strip number two is a sprite comic. Despite the presence of customised sprites, which lifts it from "bottom of the barrel" status to "almost bottom of the barrel" status, it's still shit. What makes matters worse is that there's no joke. I defy you to try and find one, even hiding. I analysed every pixel to see if it was encoded in binary into the image itself - no luck. But this strip has served some kind of meagre purpose, for we learn the name of one of the characters. The robot is called Phantos. That horrible mask in SMB2 was called Phanto, maybe it's a reference. I don't know. I don't care.
Strip number three. Terrible. Awful. Protip, Hill: the top of a human ear is level with the eye. The top. Not the bottom. Not the middle. Also, people have noses and fingers and don't look like googly-eyed Japanese muppets. Also nice job copy-pasting the first two panels and cunningly avoiding it seeming that way by flipping the guy's head. Even though it means his spikey animu hair spikes to the wrong side. Oops! Oh well, let's move on, but not before admiring more of those fucking awesome gradient fills. Mmm, baby.
Strip number four is another sprite one, and just as terrible. No, it's worse, because Mr. Hill looked at that first sprite one and actually thought "You know what? I should make another of these."
Not that I'm going to analyse the myriad of flaws in every single strip he's done (he's done 124, which is about 176 too many) but I have to call attention to strip number five for at least one reason. That reason is that it does not sit within the bland template. Remember when I was talking about site design? Another good thing to remember is that you should avoid your comic just hanging out of the nice, crisp edges that someone else designed. But really, that and the fact that the strip isn't funny is eclipsed by the welcome return of those gradients. They're the reason the sprite shit should stop, Hill. Stick with your strengths. Gradient fills. Oh yeah.
Number six is a sprite comic that relies upon Megaman-based humour that even Bob and George wouldn't touch. Well, I dunno, Bob and George was pretty fucking shitty. I'll call it a tie. Number seven is some of that MONKEY CHEESE RANDOM type humour that isn't actually humour and I will fucking kill anyone who says so. This is immediately followed by a cruel irony, as they talk about "random humour" being stupid.
It continues to alternate between shitty sprite strip and shitty Photoshop-drawn strip (with gradients) for a while. I'd say both are equally awful and unfunny, but gosh darn it if I don't approve of all those gradient fills. Who the fuck needs to learn about shading and shadows and highlights when Photoshop can do all the work for you? Hot damn!
"Oh, John Solomon-sama!" I hear you exclaiming. "You baka. These are the first strips, surely after much genki hard work, Half-Masked has become suupa sugoi webukomiku-chwan!"
Ha ha! Balls to that. It gets worse, it gets worse, it gets worse. Here's another piece of advice, Mr. Hill: when you have to number narration panels so people know what order to read them in, you should be instead thinking how best to make a layout that isn't a fucking confusing shitpile. Perhaps, I don't know, by making the comic strip a little bigger.
I'm clicking through at random here (a little difficult due to the fucking joke of an archives page - sorry, drop-down menu) and all I see is shit. Chibi monkeys? Chibi monkeys? And, oh, a fucking terrible attempt at wordplay. Fantastic. That's on the same level as Dominic Deegan, I hope you're happy. There's only one redeeming feature about it, and that's that you didn't pluralise monkey as "monkies".
Again, shit. Not only for the mangling of otherwise decent, upstanding swearwords (leave the swearing to us professionals, you stupid cunt) but for the one thing that is most telling about an artist's lack of artistic talent. Not the ever-present gradients, no. Not the abuse of Photoshop filters, no. It's trying to draw a famous person and failing miserably at it. Artists work from sources, and gee golly I'm not sure if there are enough pictures of Christopher Judge on the Internet to qualify. A mere two hundred thousand?!?! Bah, with such a minimal supply, it's no wonder Mr. Hill couldn't get down such complicated details as the basic shape of the man's head.
(Christopher Judge has a wonderfully round head, Hill's attempt is distressingly angular. Also blue-eyed, for some freakish reason. Blue gradient.)
But all right. We can let that pass. After all, if you can't draw men, women (ugh), little girls (double ugh) and pretty much everything else under the sun, who can fault you for not being able to draw someone looking remotely like what they should look like? I can, that's who. Because your comic is a bad webcomic, a terrible webcomic, an unfunny morass of hypocritical crap, stolen jokes and lousy art that I could easily improve upon by wiping my Goddamn ass on it. When you dream of writing for fucking Family Guy then there's no hope for you.
Three things: first, gradient fills are not shading. Second, you can't draw anyway, so don't bother with the gradient fills. Third, you can't tell any kind of joke there is - even the ones you take from other people you fuck up beyond all entertainment value. The only thing I ask of you is to keep doing comics like this one, but make them waaaay less wordy.
Mr. Hill, as little as I know you, your inexcusable lack of talent and your creepy fetish for gradients, I know this: you should just stop trying to be creative since apparently you lack the ability to do it in any form. Your webcomic is bad. You should feel bad.
104 comments:
- Strip number three links to strip number two. And it looks pretty bad, yeah.
- Hadn't noticed that, thanks for pointing it out. When you're reviewing a shitty webcomic, you try and avoid looking at it when you can, which sometimes leads to copy-pasting the wrong URL. And it doesn't just "look" pretty bad, it is pretty bad.
- I love how in one of the ones you link, they mock the penny arcade guys. Thats like when Avril Lavigne said "Why should I know who David Bowie is? He's old." It fits in with the same sort of Don't act superior to people who are more talented then you moral.
- I thought it was fantastic how he failed to grasp how any of it works. Especially when he made them seem desperate to sell their merchandise. Sorry, but the day when Penny Arcade cannot sell merchandise almost faster than they can make it is the day Hell freezes over, pigs fly, black becomes white, the dead rise and Elvis returns from Mars on a UFO shaped like Liberace to have tea with the Loch Ness Monster. I guess when you have a shitty webcomic that will never sell any merchandise ever, you just don't know how this shit works.
- Just a small note: you forgot to put a dot in the end of your last sentence. I dunno how can you endure reading these awful comics, seriously. Just to look at them makes my arteries irrigating the brain to swell and bleed.
- I found it! It was in my pocket the whole time. I'm not entirely sure how I can endure all these bad webcomics, either. I think it's the sweet, candy taste of the tears I cause. If these webcomic jerks actually listened to me and either shut down their webcomics or (gasp, shock, horror) actually tried improving themselves - instead of whining about how swearing negates everything and negative comments harsh their good vibes... I'd positively enjoy doing this. But, alas. I am stuck screaming in futile fury at a bunch of narcissistic, self-absorbed cunts who believe that they don't have to listen to anyone who doesn't have sunshine and puppies to say. And that goes doubly for those such as me, who dare to question them without having made a webcomic myself! Because apparently I have to be part of their little group therapy circlejerk in order to speak to them. So I make do with their misery and hate.
- I can pretty much bet that creators aren't taking you so seriously because of the intensity of the personal attacks, here, John. Look at the PvP and Cartridge entires. You spent more time on attacking the people behind them that you almost forgot to even critique the comics themselves. What advice are you actually offering here? Honestly, telling someone they're shit, telling them to go improve themselves, and then offering nothing in the way of actual advice...you're not going to accomplish what you're after. If you're so qualified to critique, prove it and offer some real advice. Let that measure your qualifications, not some bullshit over whether or not you do a comic yourself. I've read all your stuff, and noticed you went downhill recently. You wanted to play devil's advocate and call out people on producing crap; that's well and good and I think it's a noble endevour. However, you got off track. When the people you attack bitch, go after them. They got it coming at that point. When they honestly want to improve, as with the Cartridge guy, why lay into him like that? The dick cancer comment was uncalled for. And on that review, you really screwed that one up. Several of the strips you highlighted were guest strips, which leads me to wonder if you're really reading these comics when you're preparing your reviews now. Come on, John, you're better than this. You gotta get back on track; don't let yourself get so into the reaction from readers and other people that you're not doing what you set out to do. You're quickly going the way of a Tim Buckley in the blogging world.
- I read your comment up until this point: You wanted to play devil's advocate which is exactly when I realised you were a complete moron.
- And you can tell the rest of the stupid assholes at TWCL that I hate them. Also that just because I am being overwhelmingly negative does not mean none of my points are valid. Consider this: I am being overwhelmingly negative because the webcomic has no positive attributes I can see. And now, for an encore, I will attempt to reason with a brick. Admittedly it will be much, much easier than trying to impart a simple truth to webcomic jerks, but I believe that there is nothing I could do that is more difficult and more thankless than that.
- And for the record? "Devil's Advocate" doesn't mean what you think it means. Stop abusing the phrase, you twit.
- Oh, and to "Pandar": I do not dodge people pointing out my flaws. Rather, nobody has actually managed to point out an legitimate flaw I actually have. You may call this arrogance - in fact I'm relatively certain you will because you lot are nothing if not dull and predictable - but that is because you assume that someone saying "You're the Tim Buckley of blogging!" is someone pointing out a flaw I have. It's not. What does it even mean
- John, all I'm saying is, you got way off track of your original goal, which was to rip into bad material. You're spending so much time ripping the individual behind the material that the whole point is lost. And I never said you didn't have valid points - just that there haven't been that many in your most recent posts. (You did a good job of it this time, so I hope that means you're getting back on track.) The Tim Buckley comment comes from my observation that you come off as very, very into yourself - not arrogance, but you appear to revel in the sychophantic behavior of your fans, and you attack those who even slightly disagree with you with childish taunts...it's pretty much standard Tim Buckley behavior. Good, god, you're coming off as one of self-absorbed hacks you're blasting.
- What the fuck are you talking about? My "original goal" is to explain why bad webcomics are bad. I'm doing that. Even if I wasn't fulfilling my "original goal" - fuck it, why should I? You make the mistake of believing me to be like you. I am not like you. I do not pander to an audience so I can have sloppy fan blowjobs. I don't have fans, I don't want fans, I couldn't give a shit if they think I've sold out, changed or jumped the motherfucking shark. How dare you, a webcomic jerk, accuse me of enjoying sycophantic behaviour. The only time I've ever shown anything beyond apathy for the people commenting on this crappy blog has been when someone I already know and respect has posted. I'm friendly to them because I know them. Fuck everyone who reads this blog. Fuck 'em, plain and simple. Fuck them and fuck you. Y'see? Now, people can whine and complain about that all they want. It won't change shit. I'll still be me, they'll still be little bitches. If you haven't noticed, there are no people who "slightly" disagree with me. There are people who are entertained by what I say - and I really don't care if they are or not - and there are people who think I am Hitler squared. There's no middle ground, nobody ever "slightly" disagrees with me calling their most favouritest webcomic a pile of shit. Why disagree with me anyway? I'm right, after all.
- U ARE GOING DOWN SOLOLAME U HEAR ME? U ARE GOING DOWN!!!
- OH NO NOT DOWN THAT IS THE WORST DIRECTION TO BE GOING QUICK TO THE BATMOBILE
- Howdy. Being the host of Half-Masked, i feel i should answer for my part of the "badness" of this comic. First off, you'll notice that Half Masked is not linked on the front page. That's because i haven't finished the design yet. It's kinda a beta version of the page. I'm going to be working on it. Second, the Register Globals thing. I've been bitching at Yahoo to fix that for about 3 months. They really don't care. I will probably be moving the site, once i get some free cash and time, to a hosting service that doesn't treat me like the crazy uncle in the closet. Erm, nursing home. I totally mean nursing home.
- Christ, did you just shit that brick you said you'd argue with or what? I made no mistake that you're like me; thank God I'm not like you. I don't spend my time slapping around little nobody hobbyist cartoonists. I don't play the role of a bully, rather than someone with a genuine interest in improving the medium. It's one thing to call out people on producing crap, it's another thing to spend most of your time attacking the people behind it. Who's the real jerk, then? You wanna know something, Solomon, you just come off as as just another goddamn phoney. The Bizarro-Tangents. I call bullshit on you, man. If you didn't want fans, you wouldn't even bother with a comments page, and playing the "I'm too cool for it." card. You just love playing the vicitm card because people go after you. So go ahead, don't change. You're not convincing anyone you review to do so, and never will, so why not?
- We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. //Nietzsche.
- I think you were a bit unfair about the art with this one. I mean, it's horribly inconsistent, but some of the new comics are at least passable. #118, for instance, that first panel there. It's not fantastic, but it seems decent enough to me.
- Yeah this entry was kind of boring. It's been funny, although declining, up until this point and now I'm losing interest. You spent a third of the blog post on his web design yet I could determine in two seconds that the guy had just moved to a new site design and hasn't worked on it yet. So that just made you look like a dumbass. I would edit that whole part out if I were you. You're relying too much on being a dick and not being actually witty or funny about it. Fix it up, bitch.
- I'm curious what exactly would constitute a good font for a webcomic. Obviously not Comic Sans, but a sans-serif font doesn't strike me as necessarily a bad choice. I mean, at least that's better than Times, right?
- YEAH SOLOLAME THERES ONE DECENT PANEL IN 124 STRIPS U HAVE NO GROUNDS TO BASH THE ART STOP ACTING LIKE A JERK
- My point was that the guy's improved. Why you gotta twist my words, man
- Oooh... Bizarro-Tangents. Low blow.
- If the guy's improved, how come the following panels aren't "decent"? Or the following strips? So you're basically saying that he improved in one panel and then his art degenerated again.
- Your stated goal: "A lot of the time, these webcomics attract fans. Some attract more fans than others, either through being very good, or through exploiting a niche, or for reasons that God himself could not begin to fathom even if he spent all eternity working on it. It is these mystery webcomics, for the most part, that this blog is about. This blog is about the terrible webcomics, the horrendous webcomics, the webcomics that manage to attract readers even though they really shouldn't. " Now you're just attacking comics that nobody has heard of and even less people care about. Zzzzzz.... Why bother?
- I know you don't give a shit but I love you so much.
- If the guy's improved, how come the following panels aren't "decent"? Or the following strips? So you're basically saying that he improved in one panel and then his art degenerated again. Look I don't know man, but there are only six comics after that, half of which are in different art styles. I guess he just spent more time on that one panel? Perhaps one day he'll reattain decency.
- Prediction: 3 weeks before this blog goes on indefinate hiatus. Dude's already out of material. Now he's trying to drag entire forums into it to birth some 1990's-esque flamewar. It's not your tone that's retarded, it's the sheer scope of boring filler in between the one or two points you're trying to make. tl;dr.
- Jackson: Browse the offerings of Blambot and Da Font until you find something you like. You may also find the lettering section of the Digital Webbing forums helpful.
- Wow, things got dumb here. John clearly hasn't run out of material. There are many huge and terrible webcomics still out there (he hasn't even hit Megatokyo yet, which he promised us, I might add). Plus, Dominic Deegan is still running, so there's plenty more comedy to be gotten from it. The thing is, even the richest man in the world doesn't eat caviar every night. Hitting shitty knock-off comics like these adds a combination of variety and filler, while simultaneously expanding the "universe" of webcomic badness for all of us to see. When he insults "Half-Masked," he's not just insulting one shitty gaming webcomic, he's insulting the thousands of shitty gaming webcomics out there that have the exact same flaws. When you look at a comic like Half-Masked, it suddenly brings the sheer, overwhelming badness of the entire webcomic universe into clear focus. The total mass of the horrors to be found there are easily equal to JDR's zombie army of dittoheads; Half-Maked is just the illustrative tip of the iceberg.
- And once again, the whining tittybabies who actually read and like this godawful crap descend en masse with their simpering "oh you're tho MEAN" shtick, incapable as ever of actually offering any credible counterpoint. Forget whether Solomon's lost it; you wankers never had it. Go suck.
- Hey man! You're the most pathetic exemple of frustrated lamery shitheads I've ever seen on net! You go to sleep man, because you're getting fuckin' old. Everything around here is dull and doesn't make any sense, which is awful. And the number of your asskissers is obvious. How old are you? 80? 90? There's a big pension waiting for you, anyway. You go and let us kids live our lives. I'm sorry for you didn't get to have one, pal!
- How can this be a blog dedicated to bad gaming comics when you haven't even touched Dueling Analogs yet? why Why WHY!?!? I call shenanigans on you, Mr. Solomon.
- Hey, Solomon. How does it feel to have all these TWCL fellows telling you what you're TRYING to do, and WHY you're doing it, and WHO you're doing it for? Personally, I'd find it rather annoying.
- Forget whether Solomon's lost it; you wankers never had it. Go suck. This sites a low-rent Screw These Comics. Look it up, and wheep. Nestea was better on a bad day than this kid will ever be. See, the purpose of a review such as this should be two-fold. First, of course, are lulz. Second should be improving webcomics by providing constructive criticism. If he wants to bitch and moan about bad comics without offering suggestions, he can go back to 4chan.
- holy shit you could basically skip the entry and go straight to all of the turds trying hard to be cool in the comments and get just as many lulz JON SOLOMANG U AREN'T DOING ANYTHING NEW AND HONESTLY I THINK U JUST WANT ATTENTION POSSIBLY U WERE PIKED ON BY ART STUDENTS IN SCHOOL??? I THINK THAT'S WHY U HATE CREATIVITY
- So, Solomon...just out of curiosity, what kind of a webcomic do you say DOESN'T suck? Who are the guys you DON'T wish dick cancer on? Do you even bother to read any, or are all webcomics shit, and all webcomic makers cancer-worthy in your eyes?
- Solomon presents himself as the enemy of groupthink, yet seems to enforce a groupthink mentality among his fans. It'd be ironic if it wasn't so predictable.
- There's one thing I can give him credit for, though. He drew the Numa-Numa guy pretty well in #87. XD But that cancels out, thanks to "Jailbait Haley."
- So, Solomon...just out of curiosity, what kind of a webcomic do you say DOESN'T suck? Who are the guys you DON'T wish dick cancer on? Do you even bother to read any, or are all webcomics shit, and all webcomic makers cancer-worthy in your eyes? I'm not John Solomon, but... Rice Boy Templar, Arizona Minus and Gunnerkrigg Court are personal favorites of mine.
- CAN'T WE ALL JUST... oh, fuck it. John, have you gotten any more threats from The Amazing Transgendered Harpy? I'm curious.
- Hmm. That's strange. Dr. McNinja, Gone with the Blastwave, Scary Go Round, Girly, and Combustible Orange aren't showing up in the comment for me. I must have made a mistake in the HTML.
- It's a shame Combustible Orange hasn't updated in forever
- Girly is a steaming pile of shit.
- the purpose of a review such as this... should be improving webcomics by providing constructive criticism. I think "stop inflicting your terrible drawing and writing skills on the public" is pretty useful advice for most of the artists covered here so far. I don't want to see garbage like User Friendly and Punks & Nerds IMPROVE, I want to see them GONE. You can't shine shit. Oh, and Traitorfish, you yoick... the fact that I hold a healthy amount of comtempt for shitty webcomics and their shitty fans is something that came into full flower long before this blog arrived, and will doubtless continue long after it passes from the scene. Nice attempt at projection though, buddy.
- Oh man. Oh man. http://www.comicmischeif.com/ 1. He can't even spell "mischief". 2. He wants $100 to make a new wallpaper 3. He wants $40 to make a new comic 4. ARRRRRRRRGHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK MAN
- If you didn't want fans, you wouldn't even bother with a comments page holy shit you could basically skip the entry and go straight to all of the turds trying hard to be cool in the comments and get just as many lulz I love it when someone answers a question for me. Comments page = hilarity. Mostly thanks to whiny shits trying to either psychoanalyse me (and failing) or just angry that I'm shit-talking their comic.
- Holy shit, tim. Holy shit.
- im gonna make a blog about shitty words that people should stop using and every entry is going to be 'lulz'
- I prefer to use "shits and giggles" rather than "lulz" because the former has a long and grand history behind it.
- I don't really understand how he's not giving constructive criticism. Your drop down menu in place of an actual archive page is fucking retarded = Create an actual archive page Your sprite comics are awful = Don't use sprites in your comic The top of the ear lines up with the eyes you idiot = Start lining up the top of the ear with the eyes you idiot I mean just because he's not literally saying "Another good tip to attract readers is to use more characterization. For example..." doesn't mean he's not telling them what to improve. And besides, its not like he's your fucking dad. Its up to you to research how to make your shitty webcomic ever.
- http://nerdramblingz.com/hm/index.php?cid=121 this particular strip does a good job of redeeming the whole comic.
- this particular strip does a good job of redeeming the whole comic. No it doesn't.
- I don't really understand how he's not giving constructive criticism. Uh, hello? If this was a proper review, wouldn't I be encouraging, pleasant and overwhelmingly positive about everything? Of course I would be! You can't be mean about other people's work in a review! This isn't a review at all, this is being the Devil's Advocate to Monty Python aka MADDOX. How can someone be giving advice while pointing out your faults? Webcomic reviews do not work this way, people! If you want to read proper webcomic review that point out actual flaws that webcomics actually have - like "being way too perfect" or "just too gosh-darned nice" - then may I suggest you go to Robert A. Howard's favourite site, Robert A. Howard's Tangents by Robert A. Howard's favourite person, Robert A. Howard. Heh, *evil grin* and *revs motorbike and drives off into sunset to have sex with supermodels*
- JOHN SOLOMAN IS MADDOX!!!!
- I love you John Solomon, I would like to take you out for dinner.
- I mean just because he's not literally saying "Another good tip to attract readers is to use more characterization. For example..." doesn't mean he's not telling them what to improve. At any rate, I think the point where you have to tell an author to include more characterization is the point where you're really telling them that their work is just hopeless. There comes a point where you have to admit that a person simply has no talent in a given medium. If they cannot identify on their own that they need, you know, uh, characters in their story, no amount of hand-holding is going to help them elevate their work beyond the "shit" level. These people do not actually care if they're good or not. They just want the quickest path to approval and internet fame.
- Another bland gaming comic, although I'm wondering what your view on a sprite comic that uses entirely custom-made (no rips or edits) sprites, backgrounds and what have you would be... I would certainly consider it a huge step above any kind of comic that uses and re-uses the same Megaman or Sonic game sprites over and over.
- Loathe as I am to be drawn into a conversation about good webcomics on badwebcomics.blogspot.com, go and find Kid Radd.
- But John Solololame (or should I say MADDOX, lol), it makes fun of other sites kind of like your blog! You're kindred spirits, you shouldn't be saying bad things about him! OR MAYBE HE'LL MAKE A COMIC MAKING FUN OF YOU! *GASP* Or maybe not, his webcomic has STANDARDS.
- Hahaha what.
- Y'know, a lot of bad webcomics arise because people don't tell the talentless moron responsible that they're a talentless moron. Having had a significant portion of the normally spineless webcomics community come out and berate me for pointing out people's flaws... I can see why. Seriously, your best attempts to insult me are weak as Hell, and you couldn't spot an actual flaw to save your fucking life. No wonder all webcomic "reviews" by you people are simpering, craven sycophancy designed to placate and please. You just don't have the fucking ability to be objective. It's nice to know that the very same thing I berate you webcomic assholes for is also responsible for you being utterly incapable of fighting back. Hah!
- I dunno, John, looks like you'd be guilty of the same thing - you have an inability to be objective. If you know so damn much about webcomics, then why not tell people how to fix them when you tear them apart? Or, since you encourage these comics to shut down, why not tell them what they would need to do to create a decent comic? It's one thing to tell people they suck, and offer sage advice on how to get better, but it's another thing to simply say, "You suck, so quit." Bad little league experience or something leave you that bitter? But, if that's how you operate, then maybe you too need a reality check. You suck as a writer and as a reviewer - not because of your style of review, but because you just aren't successful at writing. Your vocabulary seems to be lacking as you seem to overly rely on a few base curse words, you tend to needlessly ramble on when trying to make a point, and while you make the claim of being able to "write subtlety", you have done little to demonstate that and back up that claim. All in all, it's quite inconsistent. You also have used guest strips in your examples; how is that representative of your target's work? I think it's time that one more blogging moron needs to be told he sucks...hard...so hard he should take his own advice and quit.
- What a brilliant display of callousness and elitism, this interview. As a fellow Sprite Comic writer AND reader of Half-Masked I'd like to respond to a few of these lame-brained remarks of yours. - "The site is bland. Bland." Yeah? What OF IT? You're gonna reduce points because of SITE DESIGN? That's pathetic. It's akin to taking the expression "Judging a book by its cover" to an all new level of idiocy. - "The title is nothing but "Half-Masked" in Goddamn Arial" Who CARES? You're getting snippy over FONTS?! You shouldn't be critiquing if your standards are to high you get squeamish over FONTS. - "But all right. We can let that pass. After all, if you can't draw men, women (ugh), little girls (double ugh) and pretty much everything else under the sun, who can fault you for not being able to draw someone looking remotely like what they should look like?" Seriously, fuck you. (If I haven't made that obvious.) Does the term "Artistic Style" mean NOTHING to you? And honestly, they look more human than anything a more mainstream strip like Little Gamers does. Why don't you go piss on them for a while? Hell, they're a gaming comic too! Double points! And seriously attacking GRADIENT FILLS? Oh yeah, you're really pulling out all the fucking stops to try to bring this down to a level beneath you. The underlying point I am attempting to make is that you are wholly unqualified to rate webcomics at all since, judging by your previous reviews, you seem to have it in for the entire CONCEPT of webcomics as a whole. I could go on and on about what a complete waste of space this entire blog is, but I won't, since there are bigger fish to fry in the long run of life in general. It'd be offensive to wastes of space to compare this place to said wastes anyway. Have a Good Day, and a hearty Fuck Off, - Mr_Vorhias
- this particular strip does a good job of redeeming the whole comic. Even if it did, this one does a good job knocking it back down: http://nerdramblingz.com/hm/index.php?cid=114 Ha?
- Yawn... That is all I have to say. (About this blog, that is)
- Man, Gradient Fills are like infamous in the art circle as the thing every shitty and talentless (or lazy) artist falls back upon as a substitute for actual quality and effort. You'd better fucking believe he's allowed to criticize it. Hey, I've heard of this neat artistic concept. It's called a "light source"! But I'll give the guy some credit. At least it's not Gaussian Blur. (Please note: I am not decrying the use of Gradient Fills or Gaussian Blur as legitimate artistic tools when used properly, or in moderation. It's just that they're also a common signpost of a lazy artist.) Oh, and you can't play the "stylistic" card to excuse shitty art. Style implies consistency. It also doesn't excuse making your famous people caricatures completely unrecognizable. The point of an art style is to reduce the human form down to its most basic elements so as to make it more expressive, artistically striking, comical-looking, etc. Half-Masked's art does none of these things.
- Does the term "Artistic Style" mean NOTHING to you? Oh, I know this one, the answer is "yes, it means an incredibly weak and overused excuse mostly used those who don't want to face harsh reality?" And it seems he has it in mostly for bad webcomics, not webcomics in general. Probably best not to step up and provide ammo for him.
- John, have you considered doing a scathing review with more mitigated swearing and just less overall vitriol? Not that I disapprove of the blog, nor do I of its righteously furious tone- it's satisfying to see the deep-seated abominations of the webcomic biosphere uprooted and torn asunder with such viciousness after many years of unrepremanded cliches and sycophant fellatio. However, it seems as though your opposition attacks the blog's angry tone and classifies it as trolling so as to give them an excuse not to listen to its more constructive points- they don't want you to write in a more civil manner, since it would just take away one of the fingers in their ears. So why not give them what they ask for (but don't really want)? You could do just one blog without any of the fittingly exaggerated hyperbole or sailor's vulgarity, and pack each observed flaw of the comic with a way to remedy it (not that they deserve to be handed the solution- a good webcomic author should be able to fix his own flaws, but that's besides the point). See how things turn out, and if it's the standard "lala not listening trolly troll troll" response, go back to the unrestrained fury approach- if you can't reach them with civil, helpful criticism, you can't reach them period. At best, you'll get one good stab at them and they won't know how to respond. And while I don't agree with this Mr. S guy, he did bring up one good point- can you lay off the personal insults a bit? Sure, Buckley and Creatrix are deserving folk- hey, even the Half-Masked author just dug his own grave with his "ARTISTIC STYLE URGH" comment here- but the stuff against CC's author was a bit unnecessary. I think that his comic is absolute bile, but I've known him for a while outside of his comic and he seems like a nice guy. Hell, the links in your blog to his most offending strips are the largest exposure I've had to the abomination. I fear the day that you start listening to your own legion of sycophants (of which I'm probably one) and sink into a lull of circle-jerk surrounded hypocrisy, but it's just something to think about.
- JOHN YOU ARE A POTTY-MOUTH AND YOU ARE MEAN WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN A BLOO BLOO BLOO
- The idiots who defend this crap are going to attack (poorly) any criticism whatsoever of their beloved comics shitpiles, so you might as well save time and go for the throat. (I once posted on the Wapsi Square forum, gently suggesting that the strip's top-heavy, red-herring-laden pseudo-mystical bullshit storyline was not only kind of boring to read, but stood a good chance of ending up a massive X-Files-esque narrative trainwreck. I was POLITE about it. You'd think I had suggested roasting and eating babies from the response these twitching sycophants gave me. SUBTLETY IS WASTED ON THESE PEOPLE, as is anything resembling critical thought. It's not worth the trouble of being nice to them) And seriously, do you halfwits even realize how bad you're making yourselves look with this incessant, butt-hurt, one-note whining? Sure, it's comedy gold, but it's pretty fucking pathetic too.
- Does the term "Artistic Style" mean NOTHING to you? It obviously means nothing to you, since you've confused "utter shit" for a "style."
- Hey look everyone! A few posts above me! It's mr_vorhias aka JNVreno(the name is derived from FF7) AKA Reno aka Renee aka whatever the fuck he wants to call himself this week. As you can probably tell by clicking on that link of his, Vorhias here has a sprite comic. Moreso, he's part of the Bob and George community, and a very popular part at that. I don't know if he's genuinely upset that John mocked Half-masked, but I can tell you what's really made him angry is that someone dared criticize Bob and George in the last update. Why don't you poke around "Here is a Question"(the comic that netted him his celebrity status)'s archives for a bit? Just pick a strip, any strip. What's the punchline? Odds are, it's Reno (or Renee, you see, his character changes sex when hit with magic, and also occasionally turns into a vampire or a furry) getting drunk. Boy howdy, that's comedy. He loves beer! He hates n00bs! His comic, indeed, all his comics, are visual abominations. His custom sprites look positively hideous (when they're not simply someone else's). His stupid main character is unrecognizable if he decides to look sideways or straight at the camera. The size of characters' hands wildly fluctuates, depending from which sprite said hand was taken. I can see him coming now "sure my strips aren't visually appealing and I can't grasp things like perspective or anatomy or leading the eye or changing up the background or using a font that isn't abysmally hideous, but the strength is in the writing!" Ha. The only one of his comics that has original storylines instead of being a giant derivative pile of cliches (for crying out loud, he's got a comic about Warcraft) is a huge circlejerk laden with cameos from his friends, in-jokes, "tributes" to other bob and george fancomics, and fan-pandering shit humor. Consider Vexorg, one of his most popular characters. It's a recolored Samurai Shodown character who's just SO WACKY and always talks about destroying everything in the world. How stunningly original. How comedic. You're a hack, Reno, and your strips are shit. Your little rant there was pathetic and sounds like the whining of a teenager who's being picked on by bullies. And it fits with the rest of you: your adolescent notion of humor, your immature obsession with the fan community, and your terrible taste in comics. Go back to choking on Anez' engorged phallus while one of your "fangirls" does the same for you, while some other shmuck draws fanart of them, etc, etc.
- "As a fellow Sprite Comic writer AND reader of Half-Masked" Wow, talk about the worst way to lead into your argument. Couldn't you have added "and someone who molested his own childhood pet" just to wipe out any last shreds of respect we might have had for you before we even read your crap response? Oh wait, he actually linked to his shit comic. That took care of those last shreds.
- I'm not prejudiced against Sprite Comics. Kid Radd and 8-bit Theater were early favorites of mine, back in the heady days of early "Double Naughts". Unfortunately, that means other sprite comics are going to be held to a similar standard, and since most are poorly thought-out derivative trash that barely grasp what made the originals popular or entertaining (See: mr_vorhias' "Vexorg"), they tend to fail horribly. Tis a shame.
- Wow, Lurdiak. Thanks for that, it was like a mini-review. And Zodar, it's because he's not doing this to please people, so he doesn't need to pander to people's demands. Solomon reviews the way he fucking wants and doesn't really give a shit what people think, if that wasn't clear already. Geez, he's not fucking Tangents, blowing everyone who comments him.
- I hope you include these bad comics in your next blogs: Penny Arcade VG Cats Questionable Content Diesel Sweeties White Ninja Dinosaur Comics Get Fuzzy Wigu Theater Hopper Also, perhaps on a rare occasion, you could disclose such valuable information of what is a good webcomic; since it is clear that you don't consider anyone besides yourself as cognizant in comprehending intelligent and original creativity. Being an autistic spaz has greatly challenged my abilitites, you see.
- HAI MR JON SOLOMANS COULD YOU PLEASE TALK ABOUT WEBCOMICS YOU LIKE HERE ON YOUR BLOG ABOUT BAD WEBCOMICS AND MAYBE BE NICER jesus fucking things you retards keep saying this dumb shit over and over, is this honestly all that you have? even the fat downs kids who don't know not to masturbate in public yet have learned that the hot stovetop doesn't want to be their friend, but LEARNING is apparently too hard for webcomic fans
- Hey John, you should review my webcomic. Well, it's not a webcomic, it's a cock comic- every strip is drawn on my cock! Would you like to come round for a special viewing?
- It's so great to see the webcomics community plumbing the very depths of their maturity.
- "And Zodar, it's because he's not doing this to please people, so he doesn't need to pander to people's demands. Solomon reviews the way he fucking wants and doesn't really give a shit what people think, if that wasn't clear already. Geez, he's not fucking Tangents, blowing everyone who comments him." I'm not saying that he should give in to their demands and soften up his arguments so he can join the ranks of pussies like Tangents, I'm saying that he might want to do just one review in a more civil tone so the losers who are calling him a troll can stop using "nyaaargh he's a terrible writer all he ever does is swear a bloo bloo bloo" as an excuse not to take him and his critique seriously. But if he doesn't want these people to take him seriously, I can't blame him. Who am I to say what he's thinking?
- Forget what I said, the new blog tagline is apt enough. It's really a shame how desperate these folks are to shield themselves from negative opinions. They're like those ugly white cave fish, so long starved of light that they've lost use of their eyes, and if you kept them out in the sun they'd die in minutes.
- Now you understand. If I was polite and constructively helpful, I'd have people flocking to me telling me I was a jealous faggot who just doesn't understand why this webcomic is so great and if I know so much why don't I make my own webcomic?! Nothing would be different. At least this way I don't have to be civil when people throw shit in the comments page - I can hurl ten times as much shit back.
- I hope you include these bad comics in your next blogs: Penny Arcade VG Cats Questionable Content Diesel Sweeties White Ninja Dinosaur Comics Get Fuzzy Wigu Theater Hopper" White Ninja? Dinosaur Comics? Get Fuzzy? Wigu? You're fucking retarded?
- http://forums.bobandgeorge.com/viewtopic.php?t=11236&start=634 Way to go, you've encouraged him to make even more comics. I bet you're proud of yourself.
- I did not "dream" of writing for Family Guy, due to the punchline of Comic 100(which was a JAB at Family Guy). And also, you claimed that the Loco-Roco comic is a stolen joke. Anyone have anything to back that up, because I don't recall seeing or hearing that one anywhere else. I stole a joke from my sister once, it was the "I think Bernie Mac plays Bosley in Transformers" line. But that's a different comic. Can anyone fill me in on what he means by "stolen jokes"? Silly Solomon...
- Dude. Since when has fonts and website layout decided if a comic was any good or not? Those points =/= quality of a comic. It is idiotic to suggest comic quality is the same as layout design. The other points do not appear to be creative criticism at all either, and judging by your vicious assault upon this comic and pure bitter attitude, I'd guess that you yourself had a failed web comic. The fact you linked to a new comic for almost every word at one point in your blog shows that you are attempting to be humourous by showing up someone else through ridicule, which is a rather childish thing to do when not backed up by anything other than opinion. Perhaps you should try again on your comic, and put some time and effort into something creative rather than destructive, or even do both. Heck, Foamy the Squirrel on Illwillpress does basically what you just did, but it tends to back up assaults with proper arguements, and Illwill at least goes to the trouble of animating these rants to some extent.
- Can anyone fill me in on what he means by "stolen jokes"? So apparently you've never read a single gaming comic, because the number of strips there have been of stupid-ass kids yelling "Zelda more like CELDA" or "NINTENDO IS FOR BABIES" is uncountable by mortal hand. You reuse jokes that have been done before and done better, which means you're either stealing them or just plain incapable of being the slightest bit original. Oh wait, you have a gaming webcomic, so it's both.
- Dude. Since when has fonts and website layout decided if a comic was any good or not? I'm sure you spent a lot of time on that comment, but this is all I read. Because it's pretty obvious from this that you're a fucking moron. Tell you what, champ, go make a webcomic that uses this font right here for all dialogue, and give it the same layout as Timecube.com. Then we'll see if your novel idea that people are selectively blind holds any water.
- This whole blog is hilarious. After all, it's a reviewer who thinks RAGE equals a funny review and somehow gets an audience ranting about webcomics that think random equals funny but somehow get audiences. I don't care if your review is more insulting than constructive, it's when you run with that tired "gimmick" and beat it into the fucking ground, that's when the whole blog reeks of fail. There's no potential here for good biting reviews when your attempts at clever insults or any sort of venom fall flat. You're the AVGN of webcomic reviews (who at least has something funny every... 10 or 15 videos), and guess what? He fails too. Same problems. Your attempts at handwaving the criticisms you're getting are as funny as the rest of the comments.
- Sounds like somebody has an axe to grind! JDR? Is that you?
- Oh, cute. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Handwaving at it's finest. "You're angry, lol" as a response to criticism about a review blog where the only thing that's actually done is just anger as a gimmick? What the hell.
- So, Half Masked changed it's layout. I didn't really check if it was any good or not, since I wanted to tell you as soon as possible, but it's not that bland shit it was before.
- It's a purely superficial improvement that hasn't done shit to make a decent archive or make the webcomic itself anything that's not shit. also, edreams - am I supposed to be pronouncing your name as "ed reams"? In any case, I'm just going to ignore you and your utter incomprehension when it comes to the English language. Do you people even know what "random" actually means?
- Ow.. I tried reading through 20 or so of these things and they hurt my eyes. No, really, they physically hurt my eyes. The gradients and clashing colors fuck em over royally. Ow.. btw, that mask.. 'thing' looks like the bastard child of Megaman X and Aku Aku from Crash Bandicoot dressed up in KH drab. ohgodmyeyes..
- "I'm curious what exactly would constitute a good font for a webcomic. Obviously not Comic Sans, but a sans-serif font doesn't strike me as necessarily a bad choice. I mean, at least that's better than Times, right?" www.blambot.com Seriously. Nate Piekos is a god. With the existence of this website, there is absolutely no excuse to use anything RESEMBLING a Windows default font for a comic.
- Kid Radd is as rad as the name would lead you to believe. On top of being a good sprite comic (fantastic in comparison to many others of its kind), it had the decency to FUCKING END. It established its characters, told a story, then finished and took a bow as it left the stage. As opposed to churning out one worthless, superfluous update after another in a weaksauce attempt to bring traffic to your merchandise e-store... FUCK! Kid Radd is art. Just about every other comic featured on this blog is some asshole's personal cash cow.
- Anyone who has a negative comment about this specific webcomic lacks integrity and clearly shares their brain capacity with an ashtray. I have seen some pretty ignorant, blatantly stupid shit over the years, but this is a group of people that I feel the sorriest for. Seriously. It is not the writer of the comic who should be ashamed, it is you. Who wrote the "review" Go get a job. How about that? All of you idiots who have nothing better to do with their lives than to sit at home and rip comics apart...seriously. LOOK at your life and just step back and think-how did I become such a fucking worthless piece of cow shit? Half-Masked (regardless of the hyphen or not-since this seems to be something of importance to this inbred asshole) is simply just far too genius and whimsicle for these incredibly sad and pathetic-and I use this term about as loosely as one can: "human beings." Seriously, if you're going to spend THIS much time on anything, please go and masturbate. Your time and intellect would be better spent killing thousands of what could be your idiot children one day. This way, the world avoids such unpleasantries as having to look at you (trust me, I know you're all fucking hideous people. It's the inside seeping onto the surface like a disease spreading-happens-all the time) or any generations that may look like you, so this seems to be the best way. Go cum in a sock, and keep your uneducated, red-necked mouth shut. Just as a parenthesys, John Solomon, I feel really sorry for you. Not in any particularily identifyable way...and I'm not going to attack you. I'm sure having to be you everyday, is punishment enough. Fuck your mothers.
- A BLOO BLOO BLAH BLOO SOMEONE RAGGED ON MY FAVORITE COMIC I'LL GIVE THOSE GUYS A TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE THAT'LL SHOW 'EM
- Why do so many people assume that my job is to update my blog
- I find it amusing that he finished that block of gibbering fury with "...and I'm not going to attack you." This comedy practically writes itself!
- http://nerdramblingz.com/hm/index.php?cid=1 http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/d/20040820.html Hey hey hey
