Mailbag!

Sup faggots,

Since I started this blog (or more accurately, since I posted my first review) I've gotten some page hits and quite a few comments. Yes, I've pimped my site around some, I'm not trying to become internet famous, but just wanting constructive criticism from people who shared my interests.

The bad news is: these comments are pretty much all negative. Like, really negative. (Billy, Scott, if they're you you're assholes, if they're not - comment!!) So today I'm going to go through each comment I've received (in increasing order of comprehensiveness) and respond to each one.

1. "Wang" - Wow. Congratulations, you are the John Steinbeck of your time.
2. "CAD is a terrible webcomic.
   
   you, sir, are and idiot. :(" - My first comment, and it came so early that I'm 95% sure it was one of my friends. If not, though, learn proper grammar before you criticize me, okay?
3. "You are fucking retarded little man. xkcd is total shit but you are a terrible terrible writer." - The first comment that is at all intelligible. And wow, whoever wrote it is brave and intelligent enough to insult someone anonymously on the internet! Your mother must be proud. If you think I'm a terrible terrible writer, fine, but at least give some justification, like the next two guys.
4. "First off, it's 'stoops' to personal attacks, not 'stops' you goddamn moron. (Which you already did in your first post, hypocrite.)
   
   Secondly, you're not going to 'tolerate' those attacks? OOOOOooo!! What will you do? Jack your flaccid little penis whilst imagining what you'd do to that nasty John Solomon if only you ever met face to face? Spurt your sickly grey spooge as you dream of kicking that 'faggot's' ass while the ladies swoon over how manly you are?
   
   Finally, Scott Kurtz is a fat fucking hack and you're a useless cum-guzzling troll. No wonder you like his shitty comic; you obviously feel a kinship." - For your first point: OH NOES I make a typo every once in a while! I must be mentally retarded! For your second point: Look, I probably get more head in a week than you've gotten in your entire life. No I can't do anything to Solomon, but if I were Kurtz and Solomon rattled off a string of fat jokes to my face, I'd sure as hell kick his ass. For your third point: Scott Kurtz is a successful webcomics writer, you're an anonymous Internet troll. Who's the hack now? And for your information, I am neither useless nor a faggot, although your... graphic depiction of me masturbating makes me wonder about your own sexuality.
5. "Your reviews are utter garbage, even when you pick worthy targets. A load of 'edgy' curse words and little to no meaningful criticism or commentary do not make you a meaningful reviewer. They make you a screeching little child, trying to be shocking but only succeeding at being utterly annoying and worthy of only scorn and derision.
   
   This could be a rather brilliant piece of performance art; but sadly I fear you're just another ranting, ignorant teenager with too much time on his hands and not nearly enough talent to do something useful with it. Do us a favor and stop pretending you're even as good as that Tangents loser." - LOL! I seriously can't describe how hard this comment fails. You probably spend hours refreshing Solomon or xkcdsucks or Zero Punctuation hoping against hope for a new review, then come here and insult me using "edgy" curse words. Oh internet, nothing can please you, can it? Secondly, oh no i'm a teenager i've been found out! Let's name some other famous teenagers, shall we? Anne Frank? Joan of Arc? Pope John XII? If that's the best insult you can muster up, you cocksucker, I'll take it! And yes, there are probably better reviewers out there than me, but we both know I'm not as bad as Tangents. No one's as bad as Tangents.
   

There was another comment, but it was nothing but offensive, so I deleted it. To that commenter: Fuck you. Don't come back.

Anyway, the Achewood review has been sidetracked for now (and here I was hoping for loads of angry furries to leave even more retarded comments than the above), but I'll try to be back tomorrow with something just as good.

Questionable Content

Here's the good thing about Questionable Content. Unlike XKCD, there are quite a lot of people out there who realize how shitty it is. The bad thing is, there are also a lot of people who think that it is the FUNNIEST THING EVAR ON THE INTARWEBS OMGGG. Now, I don't think I have to say this, but those people are wrong. In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that QC is a steaming pile of turd to XKCD's ruby-crusted diamond ring.

Let's start with the art, shall we? Unlike Randall Monroe, J. Jacques (the artist and "writer" of Questionable Content) can actually draw. He's no Raphael, to be sure, but the last couple hundred strips have been... pretty. Pleasant. Harmless, art-wise. The last couple hundred strips. But let's go back to the beginning now, hm?

The difference in the art styles is as clear as night and day. I'm particularly loving the square eyes, and the main character's pose in panels 2 and 4 (incidentally, the only reason Jacques can keep his characters' proportions the same in this strip is because the art's clearly copy-pasted.) Does Jacques deserve credit for trying to improve (and succeeding)? Absolutely! Otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to bear reading through all 1300 pieces of shit in the archive. But the first few hundred still made me want to vomit pretty regularly. And besides, Jacques, why start out shitty when you can start strong? CAD started over six years ago, and from day one the art style's hardly changed a bit.

And it's not like you can skip those first few hundred strips, either. No, QC is heavily, heavily story-based. Clicking "Random comic" a few times, I found this one. Now, without having read the 460 strips before it, how much in that strip can you understand? Since you're probably a fan of Questionable Content and therefore retarded, I'll answer for you: Not much. The dark-haired chick is the guy's mom, who may or may not like the brown-haired chick. There's also apparently a Dune reference, presumably meant for Randall Monroe fans. Now, I have nothing against story in general (Half-Life's one of my favorite games, and it's where I get half of my nom de plume), but if Penny Arcade is Halo, then QC is something like Final Fantasy VII. Or I guess Lost, if you're a retarded faggot who'd rather sit around watching TV than do something that requires using your brain. The point is, it overdoes it.

Another thing it overdoes, that we see in full force in that comic? References. Specifically, nerdy references like Dune and Star Wars conventions, and indie rock references. Oh god the indie rock references. To each his own and all that, and I'm sure that Decemberists fans cream themselves when their favorite band is mentioned IN QUESTIONABLE CONTENT SQUEEEEEE but really, if there were that many Breaking Benjamins references in PvP, I'd stop reading it. Hell, if there were that many references to turning machines in XKCD, people wouldn't read it!

The last thing that QC does all the FUCKING time is fanservice. All of the major female characters have, by now, been drawn in various states of undress. All of them, even the main character's flat-as-a-board dyke boss. Of course, they're all so very lovely and sexy as well (seriously, even the "fat" one with body image issues would be hotter than 75% of the girls I know) so HEY MORE FAP MATERIAL AMIRITE? No, no you're not. Questionable Content's name is laughably misleading, and if it even starts to think about turning you on, you need to go and find real porn. And maybe put on some indie music while you're at it, and turn on the Sci-Fi channel while you jack it, you fat, pitiful, disgusting, unloved loser. Fuck you, and fuck this shitty-ass comic too.

At least there aren't any male-on-male naked scenes. A webcomic catering to nerdy indie rocker fags? I shudder at the thought.

I'm about a third of the way through the Achewood archives (Jesus CHRIST, are there a lot of those things). I'll have a review for you within the next few days.

xkcd

Hey, faggots, I'm back. I know I said I was going to post this earlier, but school stuff came up (my teachers are retards) and my parents blocked my Internet access, so I couldn't. Anyway, today I'll be reviewing a comic that's both terrible and beloved of fat, socially-retarded nerds everywhere. Yup, I'm talking about the horrible piece of shit known as xkcd.

Just like there are webcomics explicitly designed to cater to sick fucks who beat off to transgendered people and to the idea of a dude turning into a lady or vice versa (and I'll get to those in good time, I promise), there are webcomics meant for the nerdiest nerds out there, the ones who spend their time drinking 2-liters of Mountain Dew and making quantum mechanics jokes and who've never seen naked breasts except maybe for Youtube porn. You know who I'm talking about. Yes, you, Adrian. I'm talking about you.

(I don't actually know anyone named Adrian, but I thought it'd be funny to make anyone reading this with that name piss themselves.)

Anyway, xkcd is intellectual jack-off material of the first order, and it sucks more dick than a five-dollar Thai hooker. Let's click "Random comic," shall we? Ah, yes, here we go: this one. Let me list the things wrong with this comic.

1. There's virtually no art. All it is is a bunch of nerdy text with Crayola hearts drawn all over it. I have nothing against text in general, but if I wanted that, I'd just go scribble in my dad's old calculus textbook.
2. The outright manipulation of the artist (if you can call him an artist), one Randall Monroe, of his audience's emotions. The average xkcd reader, of course, has never been out on a date, and probably can't even talk to a girl. So what does Monroe do? He draws his characters in skimpy outfits as fanservice and fantasy fodder, of course! Oh wait no he doesn't because he can't draw anything better than shitty stick figures, instead he just makes up a nerdy valentine poem.
3. The so called "nerd-culture" references in this strip are all either dated or incredibly obscure. Seriously, Randy, The Matrix came out ten years ago. Referencing it isn't funny anymore. And what the fuck is a karnaugh map?

A few more clicks, and we get another comic that maybe one in ten thousand people can understand. Wikipedia says that a Turing Machine is a

"basic abstract symbol-manipulating devices which, despite their simplicity, can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm."

Yeah, okay, Randy, sure. Maybe you understand that, but what about those of us who didn't go to MIT and get all As? And once again, notice the lack of anything remotely qualifying as art.

Basically, Monroe is making a living by writing jokes that only fat, loser nerds will get and appreciate. This wouldn't be so bad if it stayed within the community of fat, loser nerds. But Monroe thinks that he's the coolest, smartest person on the Intarblag.

Then there's his occasional "parodies" of other shitty comics like Achewood (which we'll be reviewing sometime in the next few weeks), Megatokyo (OH HOW KAWAII I LUV JAPAN LOL DESU), and Dinosaur Comics (try and read that alt text without vomiting -- that feeling is Dinosaur Comics in concentrated form).

But worst of all is his "parody" of Penny Arcade. Not only does it fail completely at being in any way funny or amusing (unlike PA itself), it implies that Tycho and Gabe are faggots. Which I suppose they could sue over, but they won't, because they're far better people than Mr. Monroe.

Anyway, my English teacher says that you should always try to find something good to say in a review, so here you go: at least xkcd isn't a furry comic.

As always, fuck you all, and I'll be back in a few days with a brand-new, super-awesome review.

Another shitty webcomics blog?

So you were cruising the Internet one day and you found this blog. Good for you! You start reading it and you think:

Hey! This is just another shitty webcomics blog, like John Solomon, or Tangents, or Eric Burns! Why should I read this shit?

Good question, faggot! The short answer: Because you're the retard who thinks that everything Solomon writes is pure gold-plated 24-carat gold. And you're WRONG.

People like Solomon, and Burns and Tangents, lure you in with their cleverness and their sparkly, flashy writing style. And you think, Hey! These guys can use big words like "anthropomorphic," so they must know which webcomics are good and which ones suck!

Well, guess what. You're wrong, because you're stupid. First let's take a look at the things that fat faggot Burns likes. He has two five-star comics: The Order of the Stick, a shitty stick-figure comic that caters to 300-pound nerds like Burns who still play D&D into their 30s, and Evil Inc., a wacky comic about supervillains! Who make stuff for other supervillains! Ha ha, how wacky!

Solomon is too chicken to have a list of his favorite comics on his blog, but based on the things he's reviewed, I'll tell you right now that his taste sucks. He gave not one, but about seven bad reviews to Dominic Deegan, which isn't exactly my cup of tea, but there are some quality jokes there.

He also gave bad reviews to BOTH Ctrl+Alt+Del and PvP, which are second and third only to Penny Arcade (I'm not linking it because if you don't read it, GET OFF THIS FUCKING BLOG) in terms of the best webcomics ever. What's more, his PvP review doesn't just criticize the comic, it even stops to personal attacks against Scott Kurtz, which I will not tolerate.

I'll admit that PvP and CAD have their occasional missteps -- when they stop being funny, for example. But really, how can you not appreciate a good eating disorder joke?

In conclusion, fuck you all. I'll be back sometime in the next few days with a review guaranteed to get you all worked up.

-- John Calhoun