Bittersweet Candy Bowl
Anime and furry. And it's all about tween drama. Fuck I hate this. Just do something with this.
Bittersweet Candy Bowl
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» Bittersweet Candy Bowl
Mgh. I hate tween drama BS. But at least, it has a page that summarizes everything, so you don't have to read it at all.
OH FUCK
I just finished reading the fucker. Dammit that was so pointless.
(account deleted)You did?
You're a braver man than I. Couldn't get past chapter 4…
I've noticed it before. I could never bring myself to read it because it just sounds so freaking awful.
The worst part? The style looks like the artist must have watched or read "The Cat Returns", a good manga turned Miyazaki film & decided "hey, I'll just run with that". Here's a picture so you can see what I mean: 
I mean, the artist pretty much stole the image of the white cat (Yuki) & didn't even bother to remove the pink bow from around her neck, as well as directly ripping off character designs in general.
Actually, it looks a lot like Toodles Galore from Tom and Jerry as well (perhaps more so). Also, Aristocats drew it more like a cat, but I would still consider that stealing from Tom and Jerry (which probably stole from something else).
I suppose that could be true as well. I did not mean to be disparaging though. I do think great artists steal. New things are basically just old ideas integrated into a certain form. If you think about, it makes sense. It can be argued that how we think about anything is ultimately in representations made up of smaller things, and in fact that things are made up of smaller things. We are really just some collection of atoms with a certain organization. In terms of how we see things, we create analogs based on certain things our visual system detects. More specifically, based on comparisons betweens certain things varied between detection cells that respond to different, specific wavelengths of electromagnetic energy, wave movement in substances, certain parts of molecules, etc. I suppose you've heard all of that before, though. With ideas, though, you can arbitrarily combine them, as long as it is in a valid way.
Cliche is subjective based upon how new someone feels something is. That depends on how easily they connect different things, how much they have experienced, and how strongly they already connect certain things (also based upon experience. Previous connections experienced or created). The quality of the idea is evaluated based on how valid the connections made are (of course, that differs between people as well, for essentially the same reasons).
Cliche does not solely determine quality, though. Appeal to basic aspects of humanity that never change is one part of quality. The other is experience leading to association of certain ideas with pleasure or displeasure. New ideas are pleasurable (though honestly, I wrote that sentence after I was too tired to think).
"The comic above was redrawn in November 2009, because the old first chapter sucked."
AHAHAHA THIS COMIC USED TO SUCK WORSE
I still can't believe I found something so terrible on cracked.com. They must be REALLY desperate for advertisers.
Not that many websites screen their advertisers you know.
I can't say I've noticed, but has anybody seen a Gunnerkrigg Court, Penny Arcade, Weapon Brown, or Dr. McNinja ads recently?
Just a wild guess, but I'd wager very few good webcomics advertise in the first place. Because, get this, good webcomics don't need ads, they get spread via word-of-mouth.
I'll be honest, if this comic offered to advertise on this site I'd let them. And then I'd attack them twice as hard, once for being crap, twice for trying to use ads to get hits. Because hey, insert adage about fool and money parted.
Eh, I've seen ads for good comics, too. Girly is one that pops up here and there in Project Wonderful ad clusters. Odd-Fish is one I've known from a PW ad, as well(and heck, it's gorgeous!).
Saying good comics don't need ads is like saying good movies don't need posters or trailers. After you've attracted an audience and refined the quality of the product, it's just natural that people will keep coming, but hardly anyone can get out of the first step if not without some effort in self-advertising.
Now, if advertising only will help a bad comic become popular… now that's another matter altogether.
Yeah, I would gauge that you probably haven't tried to establish a webcomic before if you're completely disparaging of advertisements. Even relative bigshots like Moen and Lesnick and (ugh) Sohmer still do it to drum up pageviews, store sales, etc.. it's a natural way to develop a readership in an extremely cluttered market full of bad things. Visitors don't just come, even if you're good.
It is true that there are examples of bad webcomics that achieve success through relentless advertising (Duelling Analogs seems to be a common example), but for the most part, webcomics can't establish themselves out of nowhere unless the author has influential friends, built a profile for themselves posting fanart and fancomics, or if they started in 2002 and were slightly better than their far less numerous contemporaries. Ads are the way out if none of the above work out.
Word of mouth doesn't tend to work these days unless you ignore the wider population and concentrate on sucking up hard to successful artists who might link to you. I've seen how sad and sycophantic that can work out to be, and to call it "word of mouth" is heavily disingenous.
In other words, advertising is a pretty honest way to build momentum and stand out from the masses of mediocre low-readership webcomics out there. It has little bearing on quality.
Exactly. Word-of-mouth does work, but only after people have read your comic first. Who's going to read something they've never heard of? Nobody. Advertising is a great way to get the momentum going and it helps to pay for websites regardless of the comics' quality.
I suppose our definitions of what constitutes "advertising" are crossed. And yes I was wrong to say all forms of advertising are bad (I didn't delete my first comment because I don't think it's intellectually honest to do so in this case), but saying you shouldn't get the word out in any way shape or form isn't what I meant in the first place.
Word of mouth doesn't tend to work these days unless you ignore the wider population and concentrate on sucking up hard to successful artists who might link to you. I've seen how sad and sycophantic that can work out to be, and to call it "word of mouth" is heavily disingenous.
I would not call that word of mouth at all. Desperately calling out to webcomic artists to post links to your site is still a form of advertising, just advertising you don't pay for.
Whenever I talk about word of mouth, I'm talking about one person seeing your comic, liking what they see, and then telling their friends/IM buddies/whoever about it. You might have a few ads to drum that up, but word-of-mouth is generally a better way of getting viewers to your site after the first ads.
I can understand some advertising in a young comic, but I don't think it's the only road an artist has to getting his comic recognition. Posting on forums with good content and even just having a link on your user page (or in your signature) is one way to get a few hits (and it's free by the way). Properly getting search engine recognition together at the start will also help.
Non-webcomic example but still relevant: A Consumer Reports competitor named TrueDelta takes surveys to get reliability reports on cars. It was founded my Michael Karesh, who would go to auto websites like The Truth About Cars and post his experience with the car being reviewed (he's a car guy and it's his thing) and post a link to the reliability data of the car on his site. He used no ads. He was well-known and able to do it because he'd reviewed cars before, on epinions, and was a highly-regarded reviewer.
Just as a suggestion: If your girlfriend's really into webcomics, I would suggest that, in addition to the ads, she establish some credibility re: webcomics. Not even via reviews, just by finding webcomics forums and posting good relevant commentary on webcomics. An SA Forums account is something like, uh, ten dollars and I'm pretty sure they have a Webcomics Megathread in BSS she could find some good (serious) criticism from pros and the like on.
Or whatever she likes. Good luck to the both of you in your webcomic.
Yeah, I would gauge that you probably haven't tried to establish a webcomic before if you're completely disparaging of advertisements.
I once tried to start a blog without ads, forum posts or anything, and failed, and thank God because Jesus Christ my writing sucked. I'm still working on that, but to be frank I think there are a lot of things I did that I wouldn't have done had I focused primarily on getting hits by buying ads. Such as refining my work.
Well, I do all the ads for BCB. Veronica's horrified half the time that I advertise it, on a page by page basis, and spends her time drawing and drawing and (in my opinion) improving her skills. To give an example of how it works, the current chapter being posted is in a more simplistic style (read the two before it, they're particularly good) and was done quickly as a kind of compromise to provide a buffer so that she can do unique content for a book we're working on without breaking the update schedule. She doesn't like the fact I'm advertising right now because she only wants to show off her polished work, and this isn't especially polished.
She really doesn't spend too much time thinking about advertising and promotion. I do instead.
If your girlfriend's really into webcomics, I would suggest that, in addition to the ads, she establish some credibility re: webcomics. Not even via reviews, just by finding webcomics forums and posting good relevant commentary on webcomics.
You should know that I'm particularly cynical about the webcomic artists that coalesce around the Something Awful forums, both BSS and PHIZ. Veronica did actually post for a time there (under "Taeshi") and try to get involved, but partially due to the fact I had written things like http://unfunnythings.tumblr.com/ and occasionally mocked artists on Twitter, she was cut out of Skype chats and basically asked to leave their IRC channel due to her association with me. It doesn't help that she shares a lot of my opinions, so when the latest Beartato circlejerk begins in one of the megathreads, she has to bite her tongue rather than proffer any honest opinion about it.
This is what I referred to as it being a disingenuous thing to do, to suck up to webcomic artists in hope of links. I'm not in fact talking about emailing Gabe and Tycho asking for a link to your Smackjeeves site to be put alongside the Penny Arcade header, but instead strategically befriending them, carefully avoiding criticism of anyone in the clique and then getting the end result of guest comics, site links and Twitter recommendations that help you build your audience.
As I said, I'm cynical. It doesn't always work that way, and some of these people are actually genuine friends, but it makes me cringe to be a part of that scene and do the self-serving relationship-building thing I've seen a number of friends do. This is what I mean by advertising being a more honest way to build momentum.
I'm not aware of a better avenue to meet influential webcomic artists beside SA, btw. If there is one, maybe it's not nearly as horrible.
I guess I understand your issues with SA to an extent. I have never joined the site, at least partly because it seems often to end up being an echo-chamber. And it isn't just BSS. One of my favorite modern cars is the Jeep Patriot (a thoroughly mediocre vehicle in all regards, but somehow I like it). I can say I like it on Autoblog, and in spite of the fact that people might disagree, it would be OK. If I were to say that in the Jeep Megathread on Automotive Insanity they would jump down my throat, guaranteed.
And if you were to mention Autoblog on the SA car forum, then they'd say how horrible and retarded all Autoblog users are, and remind you that most of those people aren't mechanics and generally aren't hardcore car buffs the way they are.
tl;dr Something Awful elitism of thought. "The majority of goons think x, therefore thinking y is retarded."
[Veronica] spends her time drawing and drawing and (in my opinion) improving her skills.
Glad to hear it :)
Apologies for bringing up this in-depth "is advertising necessary?" silliness, it wasn't necessary. But thanks to all that engaged in the discussion nonetheless.
Hi Suit.
One question, did I misread something or are you one of Taeshi's mods?
I saw this ' bittersweetcandybowl.com' advertised on f ING Facebook , as I read it my rage grew ,so I jumped over here to inform you guys and fuck you already have a thread.
I'm going to actually pick this back up and write a comprehensive review for this comic, half way done.
edit: a simple typo, lordie, i promise I'll be more careful with the review ;)
I went ahead and wrote a review.
First, a disclosure: I'm the boyfriend of the artist, created the website, and do all sorts of things surrounding the comic including editing and writing parts of it. See what you think, I suppose.
This is an awful review. Most of it is spent systematically explaining which chapters are in colour, when it shifts back to older pages, and when an updated chapter appears. It seems as if you read a handful of pages, and barely looked at anything else accessible on the site. Bittersweet Candy Bowl is undoubtedly flawed, and while there's some wider point about its lack of polish that could be made, I feel like the article you wrote is superficial and boring. I'm guessing you're just clearing out the to-do list, but rapid readthroughs are better suited to gag strips.
The style switches constantly, and it's not like it's always improving like one would expect. It actually upgrades once in a while, then suddenly downgrades, like Veronica is just saying "fuck this, it's too much effort".
[…]
As a comic progresses, the art should be constantly improving, or at least, not be getting any worse. Because this comic fails at that […]
This is because a number of chapters have been remade and replaced. There's always an annotation at the bottom telling you when. You might have done well to check the About page:
"Why do the older pages look so bad? Like with most webcomics, the older pages are crude and awful relative to the new ones. But this one is worse! As for years it wasn’t really supposed to be anything more than an occasional sketch to be shared with deviantART friends. The current archive is actually Photoshopped to hell and back, as pencil on lined paper tends to look pretty awful once scanned. Please forgive the simplicity of earlier chapters, there really is a radical jump in quality later!"
On the last page of chapter one, there is a very sudden shift in quality from the top of the page to the bottom, where there are no backgrounds or any shading. It's like Veronica just left it unfinished.
Yes, it's a subtle nod to the fact it's about to lose the halftones and become a grid-based pencil comic, as the following page sends you back to 2006. The entire chapter gradually rewinds from complex panelling to the simplistic, original look at the end. I thought it was a nice touch.
Veronica redid this first chapter to make the start of the comic more appealing to new readers. And yes, in an ideal world, the entire black and white archive following it would be redrawn too, but instead we compromised by rewriting a few important chapters and making dialogue alterations in others. There were drawbacks to this approach, but the article doesn't make an informed assessment of it.
You go on to document every shift back and forth from different styles. I think your conclusion that it's a negative aspect of the comic is absolutely fair, but the seven mind-numbing paragraphs you spend talking about it aren't useful and don't lead to much of a substantial conclusion. It's the main part of the article, and it leads nowhere.
A banner at the top of the screen indicates that she's only trying to raise $600
Sell 600 books, not raise 600 dollars.
Some of the chapters, including 5 and 7, are actually missing from the site since being redrawn. This is because Veronica expects you to buy the book for the low, low price of $49. When you take down large chunks of your comic and start telling your loyal readers that they have to pay to keep up with what's happening, that just seems like a big "fuck you" to them. Sure, she says that she'll eventually put the missing chapters back up, but then she'll be insulting the people who actually bought her book.
It was actually a pain in the ass to set this up as a "timed exclusive". I didn't like it, and I really look forward to being able to put up the real images - I hate deterring new readers. The reason the chapters are blurred out right now is something you caught: because we originally marketed those chapters as exclusive, we don't want to upset those who bought the book. This is based on past experience, as some people have felt "insulted" in the past when we've done things like extending a sale price, so I am wary of upsetting readers who expected an exclusivity period.
The compromise I came up with was to post those chapters when we meet the 600 book goal, likely in a couple of weeks. While you're welcome to insult the idea of paying $49 for the book, the blurred-out chapters are an honest attempt to avoid indignant emails while trying to get the new chapters into the archive as soon as possible.
Other people who are more forgiving of that might enjoy the cutesy humor, but even then, I don't think it's worth $49 for the book Veronica expects you to buy just to get the full experience.
The cutesy humour during the rocky start of 2006-2007 is by far the worst part of BCB. The part of this comic that Veronica and I are most proud of is from the Summer Vacation arc and onward. I think it's a well-written high school romance story with engaging characters and a great art style. This is why we put up a reading guide that summarises the early pages, so you can skip to the point it became a serious project.
The half of the comic post chapter 42 is most representative of Veronica's storytelling ability and artistic skill. Its unfortunate reliance on spruced-up pencil scribblings of the author at age 16-17 is merely a symptom of it being a long-form comic that began five years ago. We can't easily replace the hundreds of pages of set-up, so we have to hope that readers notice the explanations for the wonky art and are forgiving about it. As a reviewer, you don't have to forgive it, but you didn't seem to be aware of the explanations or context.
It's a real shame that this review doesn't touch on the story at all. I think there are points that could be made about the Confrontation arc seeming out of place, or the way the comic's degeneration from lighthearted comedy into heavy-handed drama is alienating to readers who expect otherwise from it. Or the impact of the regrettable inclusion and phasing out of poorly-written fancharacters, or jokes about the idiots in the comment section who crave the worst of the story and want to fuck Lucy. Or complaints that Lucy is too close to a Mary Sue to be worth empathising with. These are interesting potential criticisms that I thought would be obvious from even a light skim of the archive. While they're somewhat subjective, they would inspire interesting debate.
Maybe that paragraph should replace the review. It's vastly more informative to someone who wants to read about how BCB is a bad webcomic.
Oh well.
you know,when i saw the review,i was on my way here to make a joke along the lines of:
"hay,i bet it won't take five minutes for husband,suitcase,to pop up here. after finding this from constantly googling his own name."
way to prove me wrong buddy !
nonetheless,without reading his tl;dr reply,i must say,this review is a bit lacking and has some inaccuracies.
Ask me about webcomics.
I have made considerable revisions to the review, but my point still stands that the comic shouldn't have gone through so many style shifts.
It appears that your revisions were mainly insertions of "Veronica's boyfriend informed me that the previous passage was misinformed, but still, I was originally misinformed." I don't think that's very beneficial to anyone but you and I. More of the article should have been rewritten.
Also:
Veronica's boyfriend also tells me that she's not proud of the earlier portion of the comic and admits that it doesn't get good until around chapter 47, when an actual plot starts to arise. This begs the question of why not just do away with the first 46 chapters. He says it's because far too much time has already been spent establishing the characters. In that case, she should just retcon the whole beginning and rewrite it to be shorter and more relevant to the current story ark.
Besides being wordy and inarticulate, ("ark"? "begs the question"?) this passage is incorrect. We push readers to the second half of the comic because it's more presentable, and gives a better impression of the overarching story than the first half. Similar to how Sam and Fuzzy's author starts new readers at page 1046, or how Hussie advises his new readers to start with Problem Sleuth. It doesn't mean everything that came before it is trash, it's just a logical break in a long-running story you can use to get people reading your best work.
With regard to the retcon suggestion: without having read all those pages after chapter 4, you're missing perspective. There's tons of setup that is important in both present and future storylines, and it'd be really hard to summarise those 400-500 earlier pages in some kind of ideal much-shorter rewrite, even if we had the time. BCB is a comic where just about every character has an interest in each other, and so to simply omit stories told in the first half would make the current story arcs nonsensical and empty of meaning.
We're right now working on some kind of idea on how to do a summary chapter that will go at the start of Volume 2 to bring new readers up to speed, but it will still come with the recommendation that you have to read the whole comic to fully understand the characters and their intentions. We've done what we can to simplify and improve the archive, and right now I think it's readable and engaging, so long as you accept that the art quality will waver.
All this bullshit bothers us too, you know, but it's unremarkable for long form webcomics to have uneven art. Indeed, it seems that most readers seem to understand and expect that webcomic art is going to be inconsistent and improve year-over-year, and so I'm surprised it has been your singular focus in the review.
A lot of comics reviewed on this site have reviews that hinge primarily on a single flaw while only making passing mentions of other aspects of the work. With some comics, it's over-reliance on exposition, and with others, it's pretentiousness. A review doesn't necessarily have to cover every little facet of the work if there's one big flaw that keeps it from being good. In the case of this comic, it's the constant jumps in quality.
Now, maybe I'll go back and read the later chapters sometime in the future, then I'll rewrite the review and talk about the story more. But frankly, I probably wouldn't have lost the will to keep reading if the art was more stable. That's why it's such a big problem. I saw a drastic drop in quality in chapter 2, and I was discouraged from reading. It doesn't matter what the reason for the drop in quality is. As a new reader, I saw the drop in quality, and I was turned off.
I pointed out in the review that I expect a comic with a long run to go through style changes, but this is the most extreme example I have ever seen. Excluding the guest pages, I saw six or seven different art styles in this comic over it's five-year run. If Veronica's going to redraw older chapters, she can at least redraw them with the latest style. If it only fluctuated between two or three different styles, it wouldn't be so egregious. However, it's not my concern whether or not Veronica is willing or able to fix the problem, or what the excuse is. It remains a problem.
Also, you can't just say, "see, these guys are doing it". I don't care what Sam and Fuzzy are doing. It's absurd to tell your readers, "oh, you gotta start here". If you don't like the first half of your comic, go back and fix it. I'm sure not all of those first 400-500 pages are vital to the rest of the story. But if it's too much work to fix it, again, not my concern.
Now, I apologize if I sound blunt, but giving me excuses doesn't challenge the validity of my criticism. I took the time to go back and correct some inaccurate statements in the review, but telling me "oh, we can't fix this because of that" isn't going to convince me that whatever problems I pointed out should be overlooked. The problems remain, regardless of the reasons.
Well, it's your right to be bothered by the early art and uninterested in the excuses for it. I'm just pretty sure skimming the story and focusing on this fault makes for a superficial, uninteresting review.
http://badwebcomics.wikidot.com/bittersweet-candy-bowl
Added my two cents.
A review doesn't necessarily have to cover every little facet of the work if there's one big flaw that keeps it from being good.
Y'know, that's really not a good protocol for review. If you hate a webcomic or a webcomic author, the faults are going to look bigger than they actually are, or if you're just down right pessimistic the negative is always greatly accentuated, so really when it comes down reviewing a webcomic out of one single flaw chances said review is going to be riddled with personal preference and subjectivity that basically reads "I don't like it, therefore it's bad, and it will only be good when I say it is!" In other words, there's just no way to evaluate how "big" just one flaw is in a manner that could be seen as objective.
"Pretentiousness," for example, is not a literary flaw (admittedly it's the same reason why I dislike Dresden Codak, even though I can see the appeal and potential to influence the medium of webcomics as a whole, if only the author would just stop beating the dead horse of superhero comics and get back to his own shit.) "Pretentiousness" is a subjective opinion and based on the same rhetoric that's led some people to think The Beatles are bad because of how "unjustifiably" popular they are; I can accept it if you don't like The Beatles if their music just doesn't appeal to you, but to say that they're shit without realizing the influence they've had on the music industry and the evolution of music as an art form in and of itself doesn't make them pretentious, it just makes you a pants-on-head retarded asswipe.
What I'm saying is, the quality of a webcomic as a whole cannot conceivably by influenced entirely by one and only one flaw. That's why we've got more than one aspect for reviewing a webcomic to begin with. If your critique can basically be summarized as "I don't like it," then you're doing it wrong.
i agree with the man.
i would also like to add that this comic has alot more then one thing wrong with it.
you can't really get that from reading 4 chapters and skimming through the rest.
Ask me about webcomics.
The thing I've learnt about labels like "pretentious", is that it tends to say more about the one saying it than the thing being labelled.
For years, I called EVERYTHING pretentious. If something couldn't be easily processed mentally, it was pretentious. Films, music, TV, art, culture, people, broccoli.
But the older I get, the more I understand, so "pretentious" is a word I never really use anymore.
AWESOME EXAMPLE: There's this metal podcast I recently heard where some headbanger dudes were talkin' about some obscure 80s thrash metal album that they HATED as teens. Now, pushing 35, these guys LOVE this album, the band, and have enjoyed listening to an entire new genre of metal flow from that very album. One guy said it best, and I'm paraphrasing here: "I didn't like that album back then cuz it was incredibly dense, sophisticated music to penetrate, and I just wasn't sophisticated enough as a person to know how to appreciate it".
It's OK to not like something we don't understand. And most of us tend to like things we understand. But people don't like to admit they don't understand something cuz we're all afraid of looking stupid.
"Pretentious" is a dangerous label, because it implies a mental high-ground that seldom bear close scrutiny.
One guy said it best, and I'm paraphrasing here: "I didn't like that album back then cuz it was incredibly dense, sophisticated music to penetrate, and I just wasn't sophisticated enough as a person to know how to appreciate it".
That's damn admirable of the guy; it takes a really keen sense of self awareness and open-mindedness to be able to say something like that.
Heh, I totally agree. At that moment, I was forced to take a long, hard look at myself and re-evaluate a lot of the prejudices and beliefs I held about the way things should be. It's not always easy, but I'm still workin' on it!
Also, LOVE what you said above about pretentiousness. It really is quite subjective, based largely on a reader's experiences, expectations, preferences, and level of commitment to understanding a particular piece of work.
BONUS SITUATION: Sweet ZP reference.
Two things: first, to say that "people who accuse other people of being pretentious just aren't smart enough to understand the work" seems like something only a person who's been accused of pretentiousness would say, and second, that statement in itself seems pretty pretentious.
Now, a lot of people do throw the word around as a backhanded way of saying, "wah, I don't get it", but if I accuse somebody of being pretentious, it's generally because they're pretending to have a deeper meaning in their work than they really do, or their work is meant to be a commentary on something that's already been commented on countless times by far more talented people.
Definition of pretentious: attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.
Basically, somebody can be called pretentious if they're obviously trying to sound smarter than they really are. If I call a work pretentious, it's not because I "don't get it"; it's because I do get it but remain unimpressed. I might also call something pretentious if it's simply trying too hard, like if I see a comic drawn by a 14-year-old that's trying to look mature by throwing in gratuitous profanity, or trying to seem edgy by throwing in rape scenes that don't add anything to the plot, or if I read a piece of literature that was obviously written with a thesaurus on standby.
To say that "people who accuse other people of being pretentious just aren't smart enough to understand the work" seems like something only a person who's been accused of pretentiousness would say, and second, that statement in itself seems pretty pretentious.<
Lobbing around the word pretentious is a form of intellectual armour; a common rookie mistake that most pundits outgrow. And yes, having been on both sides of the pretentious debate, I always speak from personal experience.
If I accuse somebody of being pretentious, it's generally because they're pretending to have a deeper meaning in their work than they really do, or their work is meant to be a commentary on something that's already been commented on countless times by far more talented people.<
It doesn't matter whether something's been done, it's the relative quality of the execution, in context of the overall package, that truly counts.
And there will always be someone better; so that is a non-issue. By your logic, we should all just pack-it-up and call it a day cuz Crazy Uncle WillyShakes already smoked up all the good shit. And as for critics; Maddox, Lowtax and Soloman did a pretty good job, but you're gonna give it your best shot anyway and hopefully have some fun and lulz along the way.
There's nothing wrong with a creator (or critic) trying to be a little out-there, high-concept, or just push limits, buttons or envelopes. If someone tries and fails, you're within your right to call them on it. Awesome. But then it's up to you to decide whether or not there's any merit in the attempt, versus the creator not having tried at all.
You describe yourself as master, and the creator as student who must impress you. If you really want to be impressed, consider skipping webcomics' navel-gazing soliloquies altogether and move yourself straight on up to the big leagues: TV and film. I think you'd be pretty good at it.
hay,DrShaym,with your permission i'd like to rewrite the entire thing.
i know it took a while,but i actually know a few things about the comic,i think i could make a good one.
hay suit,your gonna love this.
man…i wish i had access to my old computer,i think that on there i still have that one pic where lil drew herself with a penis jerking off onto a trashcan full of forum members. (thank god i'm not in that one.)
anyway,if you greenlight this Doc ill do it on my day off.
(just make sure someone fixes up my spelling and grammar after.)
Ask me about webcomics.
I don't know if the entire thing has to be rewritten, because you can't just blow the whole thing off. DrShaym made a lot of good points. I too think it's ridiculous to constantly redirect your new readers to a later part in the story because you don't think the earlier stuff is very good. If that's the case, delete the earlier stuff. Or condense it. Suitcase says it can't be condensed? well you should think of a way to deal with it. You have to consider DrShaym as a new reader to the comic. If he says as a new reader is is turned off by the style shifts, well you better think about the potential that many other new readers would be turned off by the same thing. So you could be doing yourselves a disservice and not gaining new readers.
So you go ahead and tell these potential readers to skip to the part you recommend them to start with. If I was told that, I would just blow off and not bother. You may tell me that I could be missing out on some great, awesome story, but lets face it. There are lots of other great, awesome stories out there that I don't have to skip to the middle of in order to enjoy. You are alienating a lot of people, and if that's fine with you, well no one can change that. But you can't tell the reviewer that because you have an excuse for it, you can discredit the criticism. It's still there, and it's a turn off for many people. Accept it, or you can change it. Don't say it's ok because other people are doing it… honestly that's one of the first things we learn when we're little.
I took the freedom and deleted it as I felt it was too incomplete to be aviable to the public. Sent Shyam and Odd a copy of it just in case.
You can kill me now.
O.k
Review back up.
i used some of the stuff from the guys before me,but mostly i re-wrote it.
sorry for anyone who's efforts were wasted.
anyway,i still need some help.
can someone please go over it and fix the grammar/spelling/punctuation ?
my english is far from perfect.
also edit it a bit ?
i tend to go overboard with these things and just add anything and everything i know about the comic and it's author,
which in this case is ALOT.
i'm not really sure what is and isn't relevant,so i just add everything.
also i'm not vary good at discerning acceptable commentary from personal assaults.
so the end result is a three mile long review of mostly badmouthing.
feel free to cut it down and make it shorter,i won't mind.
And hay,suit,if lil' sees this,tell her from me:
"no disrespect."
NOTHING BUT LOVE BABBY !
Ask me about webcomics.
What a nice piece of Review. Good Job!
I didn't cut it down very much or make it any shorter, but I did fix the grammar and punctuation. The spelling was pretty good, though, no complaints there.
Does anyone have a copy of the thing Veronica's husband wrote about how Sonic comics don't have to suck? If you follow the link on the review, he apparently deleted everything off the Tumblrblog except his parody of The Oatmeal.
EDIT: Never mind, found the archived copy. Anyone updating the article can use the link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101019052725/http://unfunnythings.tumblr.com/post/398147554/boxerhockey
Pal, we are about to shut down this place, move your query to our new location. Just in case, use a fake name. No one will give a C.
/forum/t-259596/bittersweet-candy-bowl#post-
