I could really do with a “fuck this shit” button on my browser. You know, one I could click every time I come across something so mediocre that I never, ever want to see anything that is even associated with it ever again. Like, I would press the button on Megatokyo.com and then everything that Fred has ever scribbled or written will be magically blocked and I can just pretend that this abomination of a comic never happened.

Somebody posted “I guess the old equation is true: Internet + jackass = popular blog” as a response to one of John Solomon’s articles, bollocks if I remember which one. I think it’s right. This must be what I look like when I throw tact to the wind and insult Justin Timberlake and Avril Lavigne in front of the friends of mine who actually like them. This is almost an entirely new sensation for me. I’ve taken flak for, say, liking Chuck Palahniuk’s books or Kiyohiko Azuma’s toons, and this isn’t the first time I’ve felt the sting of impersonal, generalized snobbery aimed towards a particular fanbase I happened to be a part of, but this is second time where my immediate gut reaction is to will the critic into my presence and frantically beat him into a very dead state with a length of sturdy plumbing. I’m not panicking because I’m making a ruckus and because rupturing that many blood-filled organs will make clean-up that much more difficult, but because I’m taking too goddamn long to shut him up. I say “second” because the first time I remember feeling that way was when I realized how many laws of physics Ann Coulter had to violate – physically, emotionally, sexually, and otherwise – so she could fit the sheer tonnage of crap inside the 75-or-so-cubic-inches that one of her hardcovers occupies. I had hopes that George Carlin would act as my avatar that night long ago and tear out her throat with his teeth, but I went to bed disappointed and yearning for the blood of right-wing pundits.

This is just as remarkable though, considering how I couldn’t even laugh at the rants targeted at comics I despise. Imagine that. I’m reading articles about something the author and I share a mutual dislike for and I still am filled with the Cro-magnon/Internet male desire to track his footprints through the dust, club in hand, and “smash brain thing with heavy thing”. SP! and VG Cats amuse me so I predictably didn’t enjoy those (I stand by my opinion that the drama of SP! is there because Dave Willis enjoys screwing with a certain subset of his fans while cackling evilly, face half-shrouded in shadows, and if he is I’m honestly laughing right along with him), but I know those were bad articles to begin reading YWiB with so I tried laughing at the EGS one, but dammit I couldn’t. I read ones on comics that I haven’t even heard of, MS and PDH and SAF, ones with summaries that made me cringe so, and I still didn’t get it. I had to force myself to read more articles just to make sure it was a pattern. That pattern was, regrettably, there. The article where he implored people to stop linking to him irritated me because he said he started YWiB to “entertain people”. The manifesto irritated me because he called out people who were being whiny assholes without mentioning the irony. The Dominic Deegan article irritated me because, even if I haven’t read DD, he actually brought up some very good points about the flat and derivative art style, the horrors of self-insertion, the trivialization and justification of raping a seven-year-oh shut the hell up already.

I am not a masochist. I do not ironically give two, even three shits whether or not he swears excessively. I don’t care if the lack of editorial presence on the Internet has summoned him from the depths of stygian cyberspace like some bastard cross between Cthulhu and Lisa Lampanelli minus the rampant cracks about his own promiscuity. There is a switch in my mind with two settings; one is “funny”, the second is “not funny”. This pinhead’s taken a Sharpie, written “KilL iT nOw” (including mismatched caps, in the best of obnoxious Internet tradition) where there isn’t a damn setting, and tried his hardest to flip the switch there. I know not everyone can be Mike Nelson or Joel Hodgson, but there’s got to be some kinds of fines that we can impose.

Mike Saul said: “Shortpacked was chosen because John actually enjoys it, and (you don’t seem to really be grasping this) we sincerely want the comics we’re criticizing to improve, or in some cases cease existing if they’re unwilling to do so.”

…to which I respond, with italicized and emboldened text, what?! I can believe that second one with the ease of butter melting on bread fresh from a toaster, but the first one is so far out of this kitchenette to be inconceivable. I’ll admit I haven’t read every single article, so that intent may be distilled in there somewhere, but, well… you people are such bastards. Dare I say even humorless bastards, not in your consumption of humor, but in your own output. The writer of this blog says there’s some good stuff in YWiB, and some of the people criticizing YWiB say there’s good stuff, but I’m not seeing it, as least not often enough to say the blog amuses me.

Solomon keeps bringing up that people compare him to Maddox, as if the opinion is wrong because of the people who express it. I think it’s an accurate comparison. There is a lack of wit, yet a lot of time spent petulantly raging on and on. There is a lack of verbal curbstomping (that is if one identifies curbstomping as an elaborate, purposeful act that results in a mortal and disfiguring physical blow), but an excess of verbal clubbing, akin to one kicking a home appliance in the hopes that it’ll start working again, even if it never worked in the first place. There’s the occasional eruption of the word “faggot”, and the accompanying mental image of a single eye twitching and floating in a direction the other eye isn’t looking at. There’s the posturing, in his case the admission that constructive criticism does nothing for the dregs of online webcomicry, and then the nerve to think he can do it better. He is Maddox. He is Frank Miller without the freaky luck, the movie deals, and the free hand shoved down his pants. He is Carlos Mencia, elevating the status of his own opinions to gospel, spending half his time on-air whinging about the people who give him shit about how awesome he claims to be, trying to be funny about it, failing, and fucking up other people’s jokes in the process.

I’m feeling conflicted about this, as I’m not even defending anything. I think the greater amount of comics reviewed on YWiB are shit. Now that I’ve read some of DD, I’m find myself remembering how many people I know that have it openly bookmarked and wondering why. The Wotch has me mentally pinching the bridge of my nose and sighing in disbelief. Shredded Moose is so intentionally wrong-headed it’s scary. So why the hell does this righteous pillar, staunching the sucking chest wound that is crappy webcomics with only his ever-vigilant anger, offend me like he does? Maybe I don’t like the idea that he’s affected me enough to make me monkey what he’s been doing for months, despite how little I’ve enjoyed any of his articles. Could be that I’m projecting my distaste for the comics they review on the reviewers. Maybe I’m seething at how I’m just another whiny asshole. Or the part where I feel like the odd man out amidst a gaggle of people who have FutureSex/LoveSounds on the same iPod as Green Day’s Nimrod and Marcy Playground’s… Marcy Playground, or think Things I’ll Never Say is, omigod, so clever and inventive with its implied innuendos that magically transform! into meaningful relationship talk. I’d like to say it’s that the gits at YWiB somehow make me feel bad to even occasionally be a snob who tries to make people laugh with his snobby snobbing snobbiness. Except for Ted. I actually think he’s good and should write more. Solomon can go to wherever Blogging Hell is, though.

(And honestly, dissing Penny Arcade? Come on now. Penny Arcade is practically the definition of “good, professional webcomic.” Going after it is cheap sensationalism, trying to generate hits.)

http://webcomicssobad.blogspot.com/

Because it’d suck if you all thought you were upholding excellence in art when you were really just enjoying gratuitous abuse.

My brother (who writes for Stylus) put it this way about music: “There’s too many people making music.” It’s not that he doesn’t value freedom of expression, but people don’t realize that just because the Internet allows you to put your art up for easy access, doesn’t mean that folks won’t ultimately gravitate toward editorial or journalistic channels to see if it’s any good.

Art is expression of values, and the moment you express values you are enabling others to debate the merits of those values. The Internet is hurting discourse because some people feel obligated to act like assholes, but for many others, the Internet is what they use to attempt to avoid criticism. It’s going to come sooner or later!

The only out I can get webcomic creators is that they are offering their material for free. I feel a greater right to crack wise or grouse about work for which I exchanged my hard-earned dollar (after first voting with my dollar – hence why I am buying less and less DC and hardly any Marvel). Still, anyone has a right to express an opinion.

Do you have a list of your published stories/works? I’d be curious to track some down.

I may not agree with him, but I respect what he has to say.

There’s not just “theety-wheety impossible politeness” and “cleanse them THROUGH FIRE” as the only critical options available, guys.

*I did have beef with the fact that Your Webcomic is Bad criticized the use of two creators working on a comic (a la Cartridge Comics, for instance). Having more than one creator may allow for some editorializing to go on as ideas are bounced off of one another. You can hear this happening in the Penny Arcade podcasts, read the praises of such an activity in mike_smith’s post about webcomics, and see this in action with Lucid TV (three! creators) or Basis Instructions (where the creator did some work in response to Scott Adams’ advice). But then I realized that the bad webcomics use two creators because everyone else and Penny Arcade is doing so, and that two people still produce crap.

Shortpacked was chosen because John actually enjoys it, and (you don’t seem to really be grasping this) we sincerely want the comics we’re criticizing to improve, or in some cases cease existing if they’re unwilling to do so. We’re not just picking on them to entertain ourselves. The drama in Shortpacked is about as appropriate and welcome as any “very special episode” of children’s cartoons from the 80s. It simply doesn’t have its place. You can’t say “here are my clowns, laugh at them as they injure themselves and make themselves look generally silly” then turn around and say “Oh no my clowns are sad feel sorry for them”. Yes, it is possible to have both humor and serious issues and feelings in a story, but you can’t start out lighthearted and abruptly shift gears into WB-level overwrought drama and expect it to feel consistent at all.

Anyway I don’t really expect to convince you with this, I just wanted you to see it from our point of view, since unlike most people who disagree with some of what we do, you didn’t feel the need to insult us and dismiss our work out of hand.