Murray was right!

[Aleph]

First of all maybe this is in the wrong place... couldn't find one to discuss the posts of Brian and Murray and what have you that go with each episode.

Anyways, Murray linked this (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22brian+clevinger+sucks%22&btnG=Google+Search). But, with a simple movement of quotation marks, I found this (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22brian+clevinger%22+sucks&btnG=Search). Click the (edit- used to be first link) second link and go about halfway down. It's an outrage!
Edit: If it gets bumped again in Google here (http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/webcomics.htm).

Each strip of 8-Bit Theater is seriously like 1000+ pixels tall, and I already used my fake strip joke on VG Cats, so here’s the bottom fifth of one of the early strips. The punchline of “is there a doctor in the house” would be unacceptable to anyone not working for Sick Magazine under any other circumstances, but here, it is very cleverly updated to “white mage” because of video games! Similar jokes include “Who’s on my hovercraft?” as delivered by Abbott-tron and Costello 2000 and “Take my wife…please, robots!”

The humor of 8-Bit Theater is the same sort of anti-wit sarcasm that induces overweight ten-year-olds to make comments like “yeah, right!” or “in yer dreams!” or “that’s just wrong!” You can almost see the characters’ half-cocked eyelids—à la the Born Loser’s boss—if only creator Brian Clevinger cared enough about his craft to actually bother to draw his characters.

Sprite comics are part of a grander trend in webcomics: adding speech bubbles to shit you didn’t draw. I actually rather enjoy a strip called Dinosaur Comics that falls under this category, but I feel horrible about it, like a war profiteer or Oskar Schindler pre-crisis of conscience; the benefit (chuckles) I get from it pales in comparison to the evil forces its existence demands. It requires no effort to take pictures of action figures you should have thrown away ten years ago or hit Ctrl+c on some clip-art and then arrange it in panels and toss in some speech bubbles. It’s like being Andy Warhol, only not self-aware. Don’t do it.

This may have been already posted at some point since it was a year old... but my Search and Advanced Search efforts were in vain.
This guy seems like such a piece of crap, at least half of those are comics I check very often. And of course he picks some of the comics that might show certain aspects he wants to take advantage of. Like use of "goat" and "anus" in a Penny Arcade strip, out of the hundreds out there.

I just felt it was my duty to report this horrible person's existence to everyone!

[POS Industries]

So, what I'm trying to figure out is what the point of that site is. Is it like SomethingAwful with a Calvin & Hobbes theme, or what? Because I rather like how a site that's entirely ripped off from several other things feels totally fine with ranting about how it's infuriating how some folks aren't being totally groundbreakingly original all the time in their webcomics that they are expected to put out on a regular schedule.

But that's just one man's opinion, and I'm sure someone else has already had it before me, so whoops! I'm a hack!

[Skit]

So, what I'm trying to figure out is what the point of that site is. Is it like SomethingAwful with a Calvin & Hobbes theme, or what?


No, Something Awful's writers at least tends to be, you know, funny. This guy just seems to have a lot of NERD RAGE to expunge from his system.

[POS Industries]

No, Something Awful at least tends to be, you know, funny. This is just WEBCOMIC NERD RAGE.

Well, yeah, but I mean just the entire site itself, not just the one page there. After digging through enough, it seems their MO is to be "the Calvinball of websites" or some other crap. Personally, I just find myself put off by the evoking of Bill Watterson to tear down other people's hard work.

[Kurosen]

adding speech bubbles to shit you didn’t draw.
This is about how I describe 8-bit at panels.

[POS Industries]

This is about how I describe 8-bit at panels.

Well yeah, but we expect a certain amount of self-loathing from you. I mean, you're the guy that does 8-Bit Theater.

You have to hate yourself. The rest of us are just trying to be polite.

[Giever]

Oh man. I hate the guy, and then he goes and says that he likes Dinosaur Comics. Basically, people I hate shouldn't be able to like the same things as me. Preferably they like the opposite of what I like, such as, what I hate.

[Meister]

So, what I'm trying to figure out is what the point of that site is.
Hosting HySpace (http://hyspace.progressiveboink.com/). At some point hosting the entire Calvin & Hobbes archives, too, but damn if I can find them.

[Seil]

Wouldn't posting the entirety of Calvin and Hobbes violate some copyright law?

Ah well. I say let sleeping dogs lie. He'll tire himself out soon enough. Then, after a quick nap and some Cheeto's, he'll get ready for another go. Then, in a decade, after he moves out of his parent's basement, get a job, start a family, he'll look at his past works and be glad he's matured.

[POS Industries]

Wouldn't posting the entirety of Calvin and Hobbes violate some copyright law?

As if people are finally going to start caring about violating Watterson's intellectual property rights now.

[Nikose Tyris]

This isn't the first or last thing like this that has come up- It's easy enough to find a group that absolutely hates ANYTHING. Homosexuals, Furries, Sprite Comics to name 3 I know of- Any idiot with the ability to make a website (http://www.parkercomics.com)can attempt to force his opinions on the world.

[Meister]

To be fair, that VGCats parody is spot on.

[Mirai Gen]

VG Cats parody? I couldn't find it on this Crummy Socks guy's site, or whatever.

[POS Industries]

The Crummy Socks whatever guy is new, as the blog post is clearly in reaction to Shiney's newspost. For whatever reason, it has bumped the site in question, "Webcomics Suck", down to the second result. It is on that page you will find the VG Cats parody.

EDIT: Blast, they caught onto my evil bandwidth plan! Curse them!

[PyrosNine]

I personally find that he just found the worst example of a particular webcomic and ranted at that. That particular joke in 8bit theater was arguably the cheapest joke ever on 8-bit (Though I may be wrong).

Also, much of the Hyspace jokes aren't funny, but they are made by someone different then the guy who wrote this piece of hotair.

[basscomm]

Hm. I was wondering why people were suddenly searching my site for VG Cats stuff.

[POS Industries]

Welcome to the party, basscomm. Seriously, what is the deal with your socks?

[Aleph]

I edited the first post accordingly. It has a direct link to the Web Comics suck URL now.

Also: We have now disproved the statement
You spend six years producing a fine catalogue of suck, and no one takes notice.
:D

[basscomm]

Welcome to the party, basscomm.

Thanks!

Seriously, what is the deal with your socks?

Several of my socks are full of holes, and some have worn so thin that they're completely see-through. So, logically, I decided to buy a domain. I'd post pictures, but I'm afraid of the emails I'd get.

[Mirai Gen]

The Internet’s lack of syndicates and the like should give people the creative freedom to push the comic strip as a medium to new heights never imagined by the likes of Walt Kelly and Charles Schultz. But instead, it’s just served as a conduit for people to peddle their corny/pseudo-shocking jokes and utterly uninspired drawings to an audience in the hopes of the kind of name recognition afforded to some of the webcomic “stars.”
Okay, gotta say this.

You're more than entitled to your own opinion, I'm not going to act like the internet's freedom is reserved for webcomic-ers like myself but not for you. But I seriously have to just question how come you seem to think that 8-Bit Theatre, Penny Arcade, VG Cats, and PVP are trying to 'peddle their corny/pseudo-shocking jokes'.

How do you 'peddle' something given away for free, something that's available for whoever wants it? That's like saying that the video store down the street's free movies is just 'peddling' John Candy to you.

Even more so, how do you define off-the-wall humor as 'corny' and 'pseudo-shocking'? I really think that you would have had a better point if you had used comics that weren't inherently hugely popular. Actually using bad comics to represent the fact that webcomics hurt comicry in general would be a good start.

The one thing I do agree with on the site is Control Alt Delete. It is indeed Penny Arcade with 80% more "Xbox lol".

[Cybren]

Well, that guy was pretty funny, and I hated pretty much all of those webcomics except 8-bit theater, and that particular comic example was from the first 100 strips, which, no offense Brian, sucked pretty badly. I mean, I read them back then but I was like 13, how did I know they stunk?


Also, I need to figure out how to use more commas in that and make it all one sentence.

[bass_virus]

Wait, so this guy spends his time reading something he hates and then rants about how it's a waste of tiem to read the stuff? Anyone else see a flaw in this logic?

[Fifthfiend]

Oh man. I hate the guy, and then he goes and says that he likes Dinosaur Comics. Basically, people I hate shouldn't be able to like the same things as me. Preferably they like the opposite of what I like, such as, what I hate.

But he hates himself for liking Dinosaur Comics, so it sort of evens out.

[Mirai Gen]

I disagree with the author's opinion of 8-Bit Theater. Of course, he picks an early episode of 8-Bit as an unrepresentative sample or the comic.
Well that's the main reason I disagree with him too, except about all of them. Like the Penny Arcade comic - that one was pretty hit-or-miss. But what about actual game-poking fun? (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/28) There's so much that Penny Arcade has done over the years, it's unfair and unjust. I'm not saying that Penny Arcade doesn't do alot of that kind of humor - that's the kind that cracks me up the most, and it's their staple - but just look at the scope of 8-bit or This Comic Sucks and tell me that you can really squeeze a summary of it into "Is there a white mage in the audience?"

It's the inherent public criticism of popular art and literature - take one really bad example to mock, and hang it up for representation of the entire artist/writer's work, completely ignoring the entire scope of which the medium can follow.

I'm only disappointed that he never hit on the real bad qualities of Control Alt Delete, like it's paper-thin continuity and abysmal characterization.

[Tiako]

I actually rather like the Penny Arcade, because I have a friend who gets weird crap on his pizza. As for he 8-bit Theater, it's fair to criticize the earlier comics. After all, the comic is almost entirely based on character humor. And the comic has gotten much better since those days.

It's the inherent public criticism of popular art and literature - take one really bad example to mock, and hang it up for representation of the entire artist/writer's work, completely ignoring the entire scope of which the medium can follow.
People don't hate modern art. People just don't understand why a ten foot tall paper clip should be considered "art". I happen to agree with people in this case.

[Mirai Gen]

People don't hate modern art. People just don't understand why a ten foot tall paper clip should be considered "art". I happen to agree with people in this case.
You're missing what I'm saying - I'm talking about the fact that popular comics are 'represented' inaccurately by one single episode of the comic, ignoring the several-year long history in favor of making their point. It's unfair to say that all of Penny Arcade can be described by "Goat anus," all of 8Bit Theatre can be summarized by "Is there a white mage in the audience?", PVP can be summarized by "It's NyQuil, drink it," etc etc etc.

Sure, the "Goat anus" thing is actually somewhat accurate, but it completely ignores the actual punchlines that Penny Arcade can and has delivered. And it's totally inaccurate to 8bit Theatre.

And this practice of taking one single comic in an entire strip to represent the comic as a whole has been done for ages.

[bluestarultor]

I don't see what everyone's up in arms about, personally. The internet is full of opinions, many of which I do not agree with. Just because someone thinks Elvis is alive or Abe Lincoln was an alien doesn't mean it's necessarily right or that I'm obligated to agree. However, that's pretty much the point of the internet. People complain when anyone tries to censor it, unless, of course, they're the ones attempting the censoring, because the internet is there for everything, good or bad, right or wrong, concurrent or discordant personal views. If someone wants to put up a site you don't agree with, they can and you don't have to go there. They can attract their own group of people with similar views, so long as they don't post anything libelous or slanderous and refrain from doing damage to the opposing site and other illegal works.

[Blues]

However, that's pretty much the point of the internet.

Any time someone says this, in regards to any point or opinion, I giggle uncontrollably.

[Monkeybonk]

That particular joke in 8bit theater was arguably the cheapest joke ever on 8-bit (Though I may be wrong).

To be fair, most of the early stuff like the 'super fine print' and 'accusatory self-narration' (ie: "It'd take a psychotic mastermind to weave the tapestry of creation to blah blah POWER") get my votes for lame jokes. But we're beyond that :p

Wait, so this guy spends his time reading something he hates and then rants about how it's a waste of tiem to read the stuff? Anyone else see a flaw in this logic?

So reading and complaining about a guy who spent his time reading stuff he hates and then complaining about it is better HOW? It's one degree of separation closer to stupid if you ask me.

You people are acting like this is the first time you've seen an opinion on the internet.