Webcomics You Hate

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:01 am

The internet is a place where everyone hates something, someone hates everything (hi Drew), and anything will be hated by someone.

There are a lot of terrible webcomics out there, but most of them aren't really worth even knowing about. Some really awful comics are pretty popular, though, so those are the ones I will probably most want to talk about. I feel like as a web cartoonist myself, there's a certain pressure to not publicly criticize comics I don't like in case I might some day want to be friends with the creators or I dunno, like, I want them to let me in their popular club or whatever. But I guess I'm kind of tired of that? Maybe this is mostly just sour grapes from a less popular cartoonist to more popular ones. I dunno, oh well if it is.

Anyway, I guess I kinda want to be constructive, or at least articulate, about what makes them bad. And I want to make a clear distinction between hating a comic and saying anything about its creator. Basically I'm saying that if Your Webcomic Is Bad You shouldn't necessarily Feel Bad. I know it's hard to make things that aren't awful, and I also know a lot of dudes who are awesome people but would probably make a bad webcomic.

But yeah, I don't mind if other people just want to say some comics they hate and/or excoriate authors of said comics. So let's talk about some webcomics we hate.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:14 am

xkcd
http://xkcd.com/
I actually wouldn't say I hate xkcd, exactly. Sometimes it's pretty good, and I do subscribe to it in my RSS reader. But gosh, so often it's just completely awful. There are a few things it does that really piss me off. One is that the vast majority of the strips feel like they're making one of maybe five total jokes. Another, which is related, is that it panders a lot. And related to that, a lot of them are just transparent nerd wish fulfillment. The latest one right now involves the main character, "stick figure with a hat," cutting in half a car that was badly parked in order to fit it into one space so that hat guy could park in the extra space it was taking up. And I guess he cut it into triangles, so it's kind of mathy. Great, you sure showed that bad parker he was a jerk by destroying his property worth thousands of dollars. Good work, hat guy. And then the best part is that the alt text is basically like "and then everyone cheered at how awesome I am."

Anyway, that's just the latest example. Most of them piss me off in similar ways. I guess you could also note that most of the people who really like xkcd are really terrible, but that's not necessarily the comic or author's fault. From what I know of Randall Monroe, he seems like he's a pretty cool guy. I have nothing against him, but man, I hate xkcd sometimes.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:33 am

Basic Instructions
http://basicinstructions.net/
I've never seen this comic be funny. It ranks consistently pretty high on isitfunnytoday.com and it gets a lot more traffic than my comic. It's terrible. The main character, "bald goatee guy" or "author insertion guy," is very bland and boring. But I think the problem with the comic is more systemic than anything. It's way too text-heavy, for one thing. Not just text-heavy, though, because all that text is largely superfluous. The long captions at the top of every panel are redundant with the corresponding dialogue. They could easily be taken out with little or no change to the comic. I get that it's supposed to be "instructions" but it's crappy writing, plain and simple. Additionally, the jokes are always way over-written.

With a lot of editing, I suppose this could be an OK comic.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:48 am

The Book of Biff
http://www.thebookofbiff.com/
I don't know why anyone likes this comic. It's as bland as can be, and most of the time it doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. Mostly it's really banal observations like "diapers are stinky" or "airplanes are cramped" (to pick a few recent ones) but these observations are made via a guy called Biff hurting himself? Or else it's just Biff hurting himself, no observation. Or sometimes just sort of unpleasant things happen to him. The only vaguely interesting thing about it is that Biff has freaky antennae eyebrows or something, and that's mostly just dumb. It's like it relies on some kind of absurdity humor that isn't even as funny as the Chef Brian style of "lol monkey potato random" jokes.

Joined: 14 Aug 2008 Posts: 1786 Location: The fine land

ITT: Miles got a new job, so he's not going to have to become a professional webcartoonist, so he can burn all those bridges now

Joined: 14 Aug 2008 Posts: 1786 Location: The fine land

alternatively: Miles didn't get the job and now he's drunk

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:00 am

Boy on a Stick and Slither
http://boasas.com/
I think this is one of those comics where the creator tries to claim it's not supposed to be funny, but in that case what is it supposed to be? Because yeah, it's not funny. It's not dramatic, or sad, or insightful, or frankly interesting at all. Sometimes it's regular trite, and sometimes it's obnoxiously trite.

As far as I can tell, the characters have no personality. One is a boy on a stick, or a boy's head on a stick I guess, and the other is a snake who presumably slithers. I guess from a graphic design point of view the strips are often sort of nice. But on the other hand I hate the tails talk bubbles, so that's kind of a wash. According to Project Wonderful, it seems to only get a little more traffic than my comic, but it did have some kind of syndication deal for a while.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:05 am

Haha well I'm definitely not drunk. And I'd still much prefer being a pro cartoonist than this job I've got. And honestly I feel a little bad already because I mean I guess it's not going to help anything to publicly say I hate this stuff. But on the other hand I guess I feel like venting and I really do like talking about comics and what makes them good or bad. So yeah.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:08 am

Comet 7
http://comet7.com/

This comic is just completely terrible always. And from looking at the forum (a long time ago) the fans are awful and the author is terrible at taking criticism. Which is probably why every strip continues to be as terrible as all the previous ones.

Oh I guess it went on Hiatus in December. That's good, but I still hate it a lot.

Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 3841

what's the one with the smug dude and the really bright colours
you know the one

Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 3841

not something positive

Joined: 14 Aug 2008 Posts: 1786 Location: The fine land

I'm still waiting for entries of comics I've actually heard of (besides xkcd) like CAD and Shredded Moose so we can be Hate Buddies

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:11 am

man make your own entries this thread's not just supposed to be for me :)

but yeah CAD and Shredded Moose are super terrible

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:11 am

MafiaTipster wrote:

what's the one with the smug dude and the really bright colours
you know the one

Hmm this actually could fit a lot of bad comics.

Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Posts: 9009 Location: SOMEWHERE EXTREME

Miles wrote:

With a lot of editing, I suppose this could be an OK comic.

there was a thing where Scott Adams found out about this comic and basically told the guy the same thing and so he edited his comics and they were made better
and then he went back to the old ways

Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 3841

I remembered it
http://leasticoulddo.com

this is awful in basically every way. I honestly can't think of any redeeming qualities. The characters are obnoxious, but not presented as such. I think we're actually meant to love and envy them? I guess the artwork is half-decent, but the colouring is pretty offensive. most of the jokes are of the "Ain't I a stinker!" school, which only works if your characters are funny, jerk

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:23 am

Oh right, yes. That one also scores high on the "way too popular for how awful it is" scale. Also back in the days of Beth, there was a discussion about how misogynistic it is, and the answer was a lot. Actually I think there may have been a few such discussions. And searching for it on Google I found another thread about hating webcomics too Embarassed

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:27 am

I mean another TaBB thread.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:29 am

Yeah we hate webcomics.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:30 am

I hate Cyanide and Happiness because it has zero substance whatsoever. Is that good enough to hate it.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:33 am

This is the internet. You can hate things for any reason you want.

Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 3841

wait forget this post

Joined: 14 Aug 2008 Posts: 1786 Location: The fine land

so I guess I hate most of those "can't draw at all" webcomics like circle versus square (http://www.circleversussquare.com/) because fffff just use photos or clipart or something

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:39 am

Garfield Minus Garfield
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

Hate this for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that it's a crappier version of Mack's thing with silent Garfield.

Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Posts: 9009 Location: SOMEWHERE EXTREME

Only comic that I really hate is c.a.d. There was one that I kind of hated but it doesn't exist anymore. It was called Movie Comics or something like that, and it was pretty much a Penny Arcade ripoff only with movies instead of video games. Also they used the word "ghey" a lot, and a few times clarified that they weren't saying "gay", so they aren't homophobes or anything when they called their dorkwinkle-type character "ghey".

Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Posts: 9009 Location: SOMEWHERE EXTREME

Oh wait also that Garfield thing.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:45 am

It's really hard for me to come up with reasons for why I hate many webcomics so I am not posting a lot in this thread. Maybe I'll write several essays later today.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:01 am

I know I hate some webcomics just because of their creators. Dresden Codak is about 30% that.

Joined: 14 Aug 2008 Posts: 1786 Location: The fine land

trainwreck wrote:

I hate Cyanide and Happiness because it has zero substance whatsoever. Is that good enough to hate it.

yeah, I have a friend who's always sending me C&H strips and I just don't have the heart to tell him that he has a sucky taste in comics.

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:13 am

I don't hate Cyanide and Happiness, but it is a comic that makes the same kind of joke pretty much every time. Occasionally I think it's moderately funny, and it's clever sometimes. But it's definitely not something I'd read regularly.