Exiern

written by Ted David

I always thought there was a killing to be made in this whole transgender-fetish-webcomic business. I mean, this is the same community that keeps shitheaps like Misfile and The Wotch financially afloat. Hell, they were giving the latter more than a thousand dollars a month when it was down to updating once a week. These people have no fucking standards when giving out their money at all. Push the right buttons, update consistently, possess a level of artistic talent that outpaces its competitors (noting that this necessary level of talent can still technically be 'none'), and then market it all cynically and you have a webcomic so geared towards making money that you could have a blind retard run it and still make a profit.

Exiern, by one Drowemos, is that comic, and is run appropriately, as his ridiculous handle would suggest. Its premise is pretty standard: Barbarian hero of Liefeldian proportions infiltrates the fortress of an evil wizard to rescue a princess and is hit by a magic spell that turns him into a girl. Then they go off on some epic journey where there will undoubtedly be much humor relating to the barbarian's cluelessness, the wizard's wacky evil antics, and the parade of men unwittingly attracted to the changed woman! Pretty standard, as I said. There's even a shopping scene!

Now, you may have noticed that the art in this comic is a cut above its competitors in the TG-comic world, which isn't very hard when its competitors look like this and this. And I don't really care about any of its shortcomings because all that is completely fucking irrelevant in light of the fact that Exiern once looked like this, the first panel of which I will reproduce below.



How did this change in art happen? Was it because, God forbid, the creator put his balls to the wall and improved his way up? Nope. This is the comic a year later, the last panel of which I will reproduce below.



I'm not doing these reproducings for no reason, either, because what really happened was that he COMMISSIONED an internet art studio to take over the art of Exiern with an eye towards eventually replacing the archives of his comic with the new art. But really, the fact that a grown man thought that it was a good idea to show the artistic works above to anyone, much less the entire internet, is so ridiculous that he deserves to be laughed at in every circumstance and social stratum for that alone. I almost can't fault him for resorting to paying a stranger to make his pathetic magnum opus come to life. Almost.

I won't say anything to the artist or his inability to grasp the finer points of anatomy because I'm pretty sure he knows exactly what he is doing, and that is bringing the fantasies of pathetic Internet perverts to life for money. But hey, we all have to eat somehow. No, I'll just address Drowemos instead, because there is a possibility, however faint and contradictory to the apparent, that in the back of his mind somewhere persists the thought that he is creating entertainment, or even art, and he must be disabused of such a pathetic notion.

Drowemos, there's practically nothing in your comic that isn't a cliché of fantasy or transgender comics. There's nothing more telling of this fact than your ridiculously transparent self-insert, the Harry Potter lookalike (named Denver, of all fucking things!) who gets into a hulkrage over adventure books. He's naive, suicidally brave, has a background more ridden with fantasy clichés than Dominic Deegan (parents got killed by dragons, has a locket of his missing sister, finding other half of said locket is the device through which death of sister at the hands of monster is found out, fucking stop me when you've had enough), and is of course able to kiss the main character without being beaten to a pulp, which is in contradiction to the precedents set so one-dimensionally. It's an excellent move from a commercial standpoint though, as your self-insert can act as the self-inserts of your pathetic readers as well, and they'll end up throwing money at you to continue this tale where somebody just like them can win the heart of a man who has been turned into a woman against his will. But somehow I think that that is giving you too much credit. And the rest of the comic is excuse after excuse to show your lead in torn or missing clothes. Even the fucking monsters are not exempt from this. Not even the male monsters either, because they can be turned into female ones!

What you are doing isn't entertainment. It is gratification, appealing to the baser instincts and the simpler minds. In exaggeration I would call fiction of such ilk pornography, but in your case it is not an exaggeration in the slightest, because you have an honest-to-fucking-God MEMBERSHIP section where you show the unrated versions of the more borderline scenes and you proudly advertise this fact on every page that contains such scenes!

What insults can I throw at a man who is so brazen? Such a venture is hopeless from the start, because no insult could ever hurt as much as knowing what you have made and what it means. The realization that you can put all the tender loving care you want into your plot and characters and dialogue and this story you once wrote so earnestly that you sent it out to the world before mastering the motor control skills possessed by a toddler, and it won't matter a single goddamn bit because that is not what your audience comes for, and the audience that would care about such things will be repelled by what you are doing.

Jesus Christ (PBUH), you're so fucking incompetent that you have spelling errors in your tribute to fucking Gary Gygax, who must have been a god to your pale-skinned, fantasy-escapist kind! I'd hate to see you give an eulogy - you'd be constantly tripping over big words like 'happiness' and 'remember'.

Now I bet you're laughing all the way to the bank as you're reading this, because you've probably stopped caring about the actual content of this thing as this money-making setup you have really is foolproof. But know that the very personality traits that would lead you to thinking that it was a good idea to put out the original Exiern in the first place cripple you here, because webcomics, like any other business, require some modicum of social skill to succeed. You don't have to have much of it, because hey, webcomics. You don't have to not be an asshole, because there are few who know more about turning webcomics into money than Scott Kurtz. You don't even have to not be a narcissistic idiot, because even Tim Buckley manages. You just have to not be an autistic manchild with the mindset of a young teenager - the kind that whines about his own inability to read a business contract, some ridiculous bullshit about elitism, and something so fucking trivial it makes my brain hurt. (How fucking trivial you ask? Would you guess that it is about not getting linked from The Wotch yet? Then you are right!)

But even with all your failings it's not like I don't believe you'll achieve some level of financial success with your venture. On the contrary, I do, for I have faith. Faith in the stock that comprises your fanbase to be capable of patheticness and stupidity greater than any you could muster. Faith in their ability to plunge my faith in humankind into greater and greater depths. Faith in the universal axiom that that which appeals will sell, with no consideration of quality or worth.

So I can't really get angry at you or your comic, because you are inevitable. If not you, then someone else would have not only figured out this opportunity, like I have, but acted upon it as well. I just wish that whoever took that opportunity would have been a little less transparent, a little less whiny, and a little less pathetic than yourself.

And stop buying your shitty ads all over the fucking place. When I'm reading another bad webcomic I'd rather not be reminded of the existence of yours, thanks.