Your Hot Cup of Rant

New on the spam listings: ANAL SEX!

Because apparently the spammers have decided that the site would be a good place to advertise this thing. I don’t know about that, but whatever.

Moving on…

If you’ve ever spent any sort of time on the internet, you’ve most likely come across a webcomic somewhere or another, either by accident or on purpose. Webcomics, for the uninitiated, are essentially like the things you see in the morning paper, only

1.) completely unregulated by quality control in any sense of the word, and

2.) supported entirely by “fans” instead of anything like “publishing” and “syndication”.

The former means that webcomics are essentially immune to the needs of things like good artwork, good writing, consistent updates, and memorable characters; they can exist for absolutely no reason whatsoever beyond some asshole deciding “hey, I want to make a webcomic”. The latter means that, unsurprisingly, they HAVE to be read to stay around unless the creator is willing to toss money into a hole to make something no one reads.

Ahem.

Now, logic says that if something is absolutely terrible, no one will be a fan of it, and in theory, that’s pretty true. I mean, a lot of your webcomics out there tend to have SOME redeeming value that maintains a fanbase; Something Positive is well written, even though the art is generally not the best in the world, Megatokyo appeals to fans of the “animu” stylistic (and it’s better than anything Ben Dunn has made, ever), and Penny Arcade is fun for people who play video games and doesn’t look too bad.

And yet…

For reasons I will never understand, things that would NEVER be published because they would NEVER make money continue to exist on the internet, flush with a fanbase that somehow manages to keep them afloat despite the fact that, in the normal world, they would bomb faster than Macho Man’s rap CD. Terrible, TERRIBLE comics that should never be read by anyone, ever, not only exist, but grow and flourish and attract fans that would NEVER pay money for this shit if it were $3 at the grocery store, but will read it and enjoy it when it’s free.

It’s like that scene in Nothing But Trouble in the elevator, except we replace the espresso machine with something HORRIBLE. Here’s Chevy Chase, logging onto Keenspot, and all he can think to say is, “Thanks for the burning poker in my eye… and the bag of shit…”

Now, that’s not to say that ALL webcomics are bad. Technically, all of them are hated by someone out there somewhere, but realistically, someone somewhere hates EVERYTHING. You would think something in the world is universally liked by everyone, but I guarantee you that somewhere, some guy is sitting in his room right now grumbling, “Fucking blowjobs… no guy/girl is ever going to put my penis in THEIR mouth…”, and really, if you don’t like oral sex, there’s not much hope for anything else now is there?

But generally, there are webcomics that can be considered “decent” or perhaps even “good” to some certain extent, and they’re not hard to find. A lot of the better web comics are the ones that are privately hosted; in this sort of circumstance, the creator(s) of the comic are forced to pay for their own bandwidth, and thus, if the comic is a failure, continuing to make it becomes a self-defeating situation: why pay for something that isn’t bringing in any sort of returns?

Ahem.

This isn’t a perfect way of knowing if a comic is any good or not, of course, but it’s a reasonable litmus test to start with: if the creator(s) can afford to host the comic on their own, and the comic actually ranks above, say, one hundred thousand on Alexa, the creators have to be doing SOMETHING right (and for the record, most of the “popular” ones rank FAR above that).

But many comics aren’t hosted privately, and it is those comics which tend to be further down the “quality” scale in comparison to others. Granted, this is also not always the case; the Blank Label group has several acclaimed webcomics associated with their name (and by “acclaimed”, I of course mean “by other webcomic authors and fans”), and there are other comic hosting services that feature good, worthwhile comics amidst the crap that is their standard fare. Generally speaking, you can go almost anywhere and find good, entertaining comics that, while they would never be published in book format, are an amusing enough way to waste five minutes if you’re bored.

And then there’s Keenspot.

Keenspot, for those who don’t read webcomics, is essentially a massive webcomic hosting service broken up into two parts: Keenspot proper, where the “best” comics are hosted, and Keenspace - nee - Comic Genesis, a free hosting service where pretty much anyone can put up a comic if they want. Their website’s subtitle is, unsurprisingly, “Still the Best Damn Comics On the Web”, which is either a case of staggering egotism or hideous self-delusion. Judging by the various people that make these comics, I’m inclined to believe it’s a combination of both.

Now, Comic Genesis is essentially the asshole of the webcomic body: it’s ugly and everything that comes out of it stinks. Comic Genesis is a place where people can put their horrible webcomics so that others may gawk at them, much like drivers rubbernecking at a decapitated motorcyclist on the freeway, only more damaging. Anyone with actual talent either realizes that being associated with CG is a death sentence and bails out to make their own comic, or is assimilated into the collective that is Keenspot proper before they do the former. It is a pit, a black hole from which no light can escape because THERE IS NONE. You could erase the entire thing from the internet and we would be richer for it as a people.

However, that is not to say that Keenspot is a bastion of great talent and artistry.

Frankly, all of the comics on Keenspot have one or more of three problems that keep them from ever being anything that doesn’t vaguely resemble terrible:

1.) They look like something that was drawn by a pencil held between the artist’s buttcheeks,

2.) They read like Little Billy’s short story for third grade English class, or

3.) They have “Family Guy”-itis; IE the plot makes absolutely NO SENSE, and this is by design, not apathy or ineptitude.

Now, normally I’m absolutely the sort of person who’s all about picking targets and kicking the hell out of them, but in this case I’m less inclined to target comics specifically and more inclined to document one broad, generalized set of instructions on how to, hopefully, write and draw a comic that does not, in fact, resemble the inside of a toilet bowl after a meal at Taco Bell. This is partly because I have learned that, being as how webcomics share the same internet as something like YHCOR, those who make said comics are entirely likely to blunder across this site by accident (or through vanity searches) and I’m not very interested in defending my opinion to the throngs of “FUK U WERE’S UR WEBCOMIC?!?” assholes who apparently don’t understand that what they like isn’t done very well, but it’s also because, frankly, so many webcomics do so many of the same things wrong that it’s just easier to make one big column and hope for the best.

TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO FIX YOUR WEBCOMIC:

WRITING:

1. Proofread your work. Now, one of the major problems I have with webbcomic authors, especially in this day and age, is when words are misspelled. Look, seeing as how you have a scanner to scan in your drawings, and internet with which to upload them, I have to believe that you fuckers have Microsoft Word installed on your PC’s (especially considering it usually comes installed on most PC’s and, frankly, I doubt many of you have the intellectual acumen required to build your own). Word has a spell-checker built RIGHT INTO THE SOFTWARE, so do us all a favor and FUCKING USE IT.

And on the off chance you DON’T have Word, allow me to help you: download either Open Office, which is functionally identical to Word, only FUCKING FREE, or download Mozilla Firefox, which is also FUCKING FREE. Both of these programs offer a spellcheck function, so all you have to do is type in your script and BOOM! INSTANT SPELLCHECK. I’m looking at you, Jennie. Spelling errors take five seconds to fix. I’m sure you’re a nice person, and I’m sure you have lots of fans, but you’re asking people to pay money for your work. This? Unacceptable. “Merchandise”. No red line. Simple.

That’s not to say that the rest of you get a free pass. Those of you who have homonym problems? You know what I mean: there or their or they’re, your or you’re, its or it’s, that sort of thing. Right, well, stop doing that. I’m not the grammar fairy or anything (my legs are too hairy for the dress), but most of you are high school graduates. Some of you actually made it through college. And while I might be a little fuzzy on the details of each specific high school and college curriculum, I’m willing to bet that they’re all identical in their requiring that you take ENGLISH COURSES. ACT LIKE IT.

Oh, and before I forget: if you’re not comfortable with big words, or if you want to use a word and aren’t certain if you’re using it right (or even if you are), LOOK IT UP. This comic sums up everything that’s wrong with assuming you know what a word means: the word the author was looking for was “corroborates”, which means what they were going for (verifies), as opposed to what they said (works together).

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be an asshole. If your character’s gimmick is that they misuse words on a consistent basis, then fine, so long as you’re pointing that out in some form or fashion. If your character has some sort of odd accent or speaks in some type of slang, that’s also fine. But otherwise? Fix that shit. Because I don’t care if this is “just a hobby”; you are charging people money to own products with your characters on them. If you are such a lazy douchebag that you can’t be bothered spending the ten seconds to check your own spelling and grammar before you post your comic on the internet, but you’re entirely willing to collect your donations and commissions from loyal fans who are hoping you might, I don’t know, IMPROVE… well, honestly, you’re a worthless human being. Sorry, but it’s not MY fault you’re a lazy shit who has no interest in bettering yourself. But the good news is, your parents will have to take at least SOME responsibility for that.

No, not all of it. Sorry, I can only do so much.

2. If you get bored, start over. I mean, I get it, okay? You’ve invested a lot of work in your characters and you have love for them and their world, but you don’t want to keep doing the same shit you’ve been doing because it has become boring. That’s fine, but you need to understand that sometimes it is perfectly okay to say “well, it was a good run, but now it’s time to do something else, flex the creative muscles in a different direction and try something new” and retire the comic you’re making to start work on something new.

You will note that most of your peers do not do this. To you I say: don’t be like them.

It’s easy to find a comic that does this; one can throw a metaphorical stone and find an example of this sort of behavior. Exploitation Now, originally a random comedy story about two ridiculous characters, turned into an action-drama about two secondary characters before its eventual retirement. College Roomies From Hell, originally about college students going to college, somehow or another polymorphed into a story about the same characters going through various dramatic and overly ridiculous sci-fi/action stories with their college life taking a DISTINCT backseat (to the extent that if their college involvement were eliminated from the comic entirely, no one would notice). Roomies, originally about college students going to college, turned into half a story about college and half a story about a SECRET ALIEN FIGHTING ORGANIZATION until the comic was eventually renamed “It’s Walky” and the college storyline was jettisoned almost entirely, along with most of the characters in it (well, the likable ones, anyway; the annoying ones were brought on board the It’s Walky comic and given major personality transplants to make them into characters people might like). Road Waffles which started as… well, a knock-off of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” meets “The Chase” and ended up becoming a GIGANTIC MESS by the time the writer mercy-killed the strip eons later… before resurrecting it years later as even more of a FaLiLV knock-off, then turning it into an even LARGER mess. The Life of Riley (one of a million ‘Machall’ inspired comics), originally about friends hanging out, turned into a major battle between angels and demons and God only knows what else. Applegeeks started out as another Machall before it suddenly turned into “OMG ADVENTURE” in-between the gags and such, and Comedity seems to be trending in the same direction. The king of this gambit is, of course, Megatokyo, and if you haven’t read that, then I just can’t help you. Of course, Fred Gallagher somehow managed to do this thing in a way that wasn’t hideously offensive to the fanbase (and wasn’t MORE offensive than anything else he was doing to those who loathed the comic), something no one else seems capable of doing.

That means you.

So, in conclusion: if you get bored, DO SOMETHING ELSE. Do not turn your “story of a few people doing fuck-all” into “OMG ADVENTURE AND LASERS AND SHIT” because there’s no need for it. Pick a concept and stick with it. Also, stop writing comics about people going to college; I mentioned FOUR in the above paragraph; it’s a dead concept, let it go.

And also, Eight is a hack.

3. Write what you know. Yes, yes, I know, EVERYONE says that. Well, dig this: they say it for a reason. If your entire reading career has been spent on Archie and fanfics of Beverley Hills 90210, then yes, perhaps a high school themed comic might well be right up your alley. If you’ve been reading nothing but Dragonlance and D&D books, then a fantasy story might be reasonable for you to consider. And if you’ve been reading nothing but romance novels and slash fic your entire life, well… um… you probably shouldn’t make a webcomic.

See, there’s a reason, as I noted, that everyone says “write what you know”: because the theory goes that if you love something and spend your time immersed in it, you SHOULD (key word there) know how to tell a story surrounding that thing you love. Now, obviously if you are a terrible writer you most likely will be a failure at ANYTHING you write, but if you at least stick to what you like, you should be LESS of an abysmal failure than if you write something you have NO IDEA about. I don’t care how popular Spider-Man 3 was in the box office; if you’ve never read a superhero comic in your entire life, you probably shouldn’t try writing one, because you would most likely be BAD at it.

I mean, this mentality is, in most cases, how great writers come up with great stories. Steven King was told that they were exterminating vermin in the textiles mill where he worked, and BANG, “Night Shift” was born. Frank Miller knew far more about writing pulps and stories of corruption and greed than he did about writing superheroes, so when he wrote a pulpy story about corruption and greed, it worked, and “The Dark Knight Returns” was born. This is, literally, not very difficult, people. If you do not READ science fiction and you do not LIKE science fiction, do not try to WRITE science fiction; all you will write are stories that are hideous and offensive both to fans and detractors of science fiction.

I know this seems simple, but you have no idea how often people do not do this thing. Seriously, compare the genre a webcomic falls into with any interests the writer happens to note and in most cases you’ll find yourself wondering what the hell happened. I’m just saying.

4. Understand that “reality” is not the same thing as “realistic writing”, and act accordingly. Look, in real life, people are strange. People can be summed up by one of many Scott Adams principles: “We expect others to act rationally though we ourselves act irrational”. This is a completely fair and valid assessment of people as a whole, and a GOOD writer can translate that into the printed form without losing any of the emotional subtext a simple action or reaction might carry.

Most people, however, are not that gifted.

See, here’s the thing: in reality, we are not privy to everyone’s thoughts and emotional responses, so we have NO IDEA what someone might be thinking when they fly off the handle at what we believe is a largely innocent and reasonable comment. In fiction, however, we are generally privy to these sorts of internal dialogs (unless everything is written in the first person) and thus we can be made aware of why, for example, a character chose to bash his best friend in the face after his BFF just made an off-hand comment about finding our principle protagonist attractive. If you fail to fill in this sort of internal dialog, we’re left to formulate our own, because in our minds, these characters are PEOPLE, they are ALIVE, and they think like PEOPLE do.

And yes, most readers do this thing; if you don’t believe me, go look at a Harry Potter forum sometime.

The point being this: If you establish a character as being a certain way, you generally need to follow up on this by either continuing to write the character this way or, alternatively, by explaining the change in behavior. A character who is shown as being devoted to a specific character will not see this person change their behavior and explain it away as “oh, they became a psycho”; they will try to help and understand what has happened UNLESS something has changed between the two that is significant enough to warrant such a reaction. A character who is just and moral will not attempt to kill others WITHOUT A SIGNIFICANT REASON.

I mean, Jesus Christ people, Saved By the fucking Bell knew how to do this; they created characters and kept their motivations consistent throughout the series. SAVED BY THE BELL HAS BETTER WRITING THAN YOUR WEBCOMIC, OKAY? And just because Anne Rice says it’s okay to say “fuck character motivation” when you have a story to tell doesn’t mean you should. Remember: your characters are PEOPLE, not your playthings, and when you start treating them as pawns that can fill any role in a story just because “it needs to be told”, then you lose the readers. Seriously.

And on that note, in fact…

5. Understand what it means to make a character. I will say this once and once only: there is a difference between making a character and a cypher, and it is that characters are defined by what they DO, NOT by what happens to them.

I feel I must say this because YOU ARE ALL VERY, VERY BAD AT TELLING THE DIFFERENCE.

Pick any webcomic and and you’ll see what I mean. “Ooh, my friends went and reconciled behind my back so instead of DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT I’m just going to stalk them for an undisclosed period of time, not because I’m legitimately upset about this, but because I want to know why they didn’t forgive me.” This is not “character building”, no matter how much you might think it is; this is shit, written by someone who is a shitty writer, period.

Characters are people. Period. People behave in clearly definable fashions that are at least vaguely understandable to someone who isn’t paying attention very well. When characters act a certain way, then COMPLETELY change how they act and react, there needs to be a REASON for this. People do things for reasons; expecting the reader to fill in the blanks is (say it with me) LAZY. If one cannot rationalize the behavior of your characters, even if they HAVE read your entire archives, then YOU HAVE FAILED.

“So and so is an asshole!” Why? “Because he cheated on other so and so!” But you don’t like this character either. “But what he did is wrong!” And? FDR lied about Pearl Harbor to get us involved in World War II, something pretty much everyone accepts at this point because had we not kicked Hitler’s ass, we’d be fucked.

… and yes, I’m aware that’s an extreme example. The world isn’t black and white. People cheat on other people for plenty of reasons; if you don’t like EITHER character, how can you be compelled to care that THIS character did something wrong?”But he’s a crazy stalker now! See, he’s an asshole!”

He’s a crazy stalker because the writer is shitty and couldn’t think up anything better for the character to do. This still fails to explain WHY the character is an asshole when he really hasn’t DONE anything, especially since he doesn’t really have a consistent character to begin with.

(Not to mention this is the second character to go “crazy” in this comic; the writer in question seems to have a thing with ‘mental problems’. Hmmm…)

In other words: why should I care what your characters do and do not do when you obviously don’t care either, because you devote so little time to giving them consistent motivations and spend so much time HAVING THINGS HAPPEN TO THEM OH NOES that we never know who the characters are in the first place, let alone give a shit? When a character is presented in a certain way, then changes to act a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT way, there SHOULD BE A REASON for that. If the reason provided is something that changed internally for the character that is explained and seems organic (even if not understandable), that’s perfectly fine. If there IS no provided reason, or the reason is EXTERNAL rather than INTERNAL, than we’re left with a character who’s become a completely different person for no adequately explained reason, then what you’re saying is “I wanted to write this story and continuity and character development and the long-term viability of my characters mean very little to me, all I care about is telling a story, so fuck you and read it”.

And I’m telling you, if you want to develop a fanbase that doesn’t consist of ten drooling sycophants and the car wreck mentality crowd, YOU CANNOT DO THIS.

Just a thought.

There will be a second part to this, when I feel the need to finish it. You have been warned.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.