Where's Your Webcomic?

Hello, my name is Rob, and I am utterly incapable of producing anything creative at all. This is why I criticize things! You see, critics cannot write anything of their own. All they are capable of doing is write negative reviews of things. This invalidates all of their negative reviews! (Positive reviews are, of course, unaffected by this.) It makes it very difficult to be a critic, because you have to write a best-selling novel in order to criticize fiction, a smash hit film in order to be a film critic, a platinum album in order to write music reviews, and, of course, a successful webcomic in order to write webcomics reviews. So why don't we all just focus on that, if we hate it so much? OH RIGHT it's because we are incapable of producing anything.

Not every cuddlefish who makes this attack demands that we make our webcomic as successful as Randall's, of course. Some seem like they would be content if only we produced something--I think the implication being that you are only capable of either writing or criticizing; never both. I guess that means that if only we were to produce something--anything!--this blog would immediately go away.

I will start with the assumption that none of us produces anything creative, because it is easily dismissed. This is not true! Several regulars create their own webcomics. I write morose microfiction on my blog nearly every day. Some others write fiction of their own, and I expect there are other artists I'm not aware of in our midst.

With that said, let's continue: do critics need to be experts in the field they are criticizing? (Spoiler alert: no, no they don't.)

That is certainly a question! Unfortunately, the skill required to read something is not the same as the skill required to write it. Ditto art, music, film, et cetera. The job of the entertainer is to entertain an audience. If a member of the audience did not like it, the entertainer has failed in this regard. This does not automatically make their art a failure, but it does mean that the person who failed to be entertained is entitled to express why it is they disliked it. Even--no, especially--if they are not experts in the field. Most of us are not.

So! XKCD. We mock it regularly. It is pretty terrible these days. The regulars here--a diverse cast, all!--routinely dislike it. Routinely! And we derive pleasure from mocking it. Am I somehow more qualified to write about XKCD because I'm a writer than someone who doesn't write? Because they are quite capable of disliking it just as much as I am, and they might have a different perspective.

I can envision scenarios where being a writer would make me like something more, and situations where it would make me like something less. Similarly, mathematicians and scientists are often equipped to find things they like or dislike that I simply wouldn't notice in XKCD.

This particular cuddlefishism confuses me, I think because it is pretty much the textbook definition of an ad hominem argument--if I point out, for instance, that Randall is too wordy and that if he tightened up his dialogue he would produce a much sharper comic of higher quality, and some cuddlefish comes and says "yeah I don't see your webcomic," he is doing nothing but ignoring the argument by attacking some quality of mine--in this case, that I am not a popular webcomics artist. Does this somehow make Randall less excessively wordy? No, it does not. Does it somehow mean that his comic would not improve if he trimmed it down a bit? No, it does not.

And for the record, literally everything that I have ever written, including the terrible stuff that I don't let anyone see from middle school, is better than the average XKCD.

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GUYS it's carl here! look over on the left I made a WHOLE LITTLE AREA with links to these recent posts Rob made! that is so special. i hope he writes more. I also linked to them from the FAQ (the "lame" faq) in the answers to the relevant questions. Keep an eye on Rob guys, he is an up-and-comer on the blog.