A Very Special xkcdsucks Post

[Your "Dr. Skullthumper" was all like "yo let me post a review of webcomics.me" and I was all like "okay email it to me." At first he tried to send me a Word doc with formatting and I was like "nah, brah," but then he gave me proper HTML. As always, the guest posts are vastly inferior, but it's the weekend and I'm bored, so enjoy, maybe? -Ed.]

Fine people of xkcdsucks:

I rise from the comments section and into the blog proper because I can be silent no longer. Not that I was silent in the first place, but for the moment I will push aside this fact in the interest of a dramatic opening.

I have come here not to criticize xkcd, but – in the spirit of the age-old question Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? – I have come to criticize the critics. Specifically Carl and the other posers posters at webcomics.me whom any reasonable man, woman or spambot would label as “douchebags”.

Let us examine a few of the most recent postings.

I will begin with the post Tim reads webcomics (October 7, 2010), published on the eighth of October. Please, open a new tab and follow along with me. Do you see anything remotely resembling criticism? Anything that makes this post more informative than simply reading the webcomics themselves? I cannot even label this as “commentary”. It is more along the lines of a “mind dump,” as though someone sat Tim down with paper and pencil, flashed images of comics in front of his eyes, and instructed him to scribble down his first reaction to each one.

This is not criticism. It is purposeless writing with nothing to offer the reader. It tells us nothing of what each comic does well, does poorly, or in some cases what the comic even does at all. His commentary on SMBC is little more than “Holy shit, this guy has a really long neck,” not explaining what SMBC is or even developing his art critique into something meaningful. He may as well have posted “lol” or “:P” under each comic for all his “commentary” gives us.

And now I shall unleash my unbridled rage onto the next post, entitled QCsucks Weekly Update October 9^th, posted on the tenth of October.

There is much to criticize about Questionable Content. Perhaps one might touch upon how the characterization that has driven the comic for years has suddenly gone stagnant and the “plot,” such as it is, has dissolved into directionless matchmaking. Or perhaps there is discussion to be had about the author’s choice to redraw several comics for his recently published collection. There is so much to be said about this comic that it arguably takes some sort of skill for the author to produce such an incredibly bland post about it.

He begins by mocking the author’s name and continues this “joke” throughout in one of the laziest attempts to be entertaining since Mr. Munroe discovered the phrase “Higgs Boson”. What motivation Kirk has for this – whether it was to make a point or just to be random – is unknown.

The first critique Kirk has about Questionable Content is that the “joke-a-day” formula detracts from the quality of the work. I really must give Kirk some points for effort here. After reading Tim’s post, it would not be unreasonable for one to conclude that webcomics.me contains no criticism at all. (I might point out that attacking the formula QC has run on for years since the beginning, and is therefore a large part of QC’s identity, is truly missing the point – QC is a joke-a-day comic and suggesting that it should not be would be to suggest that QC no longer be QC. I might suggest that it would be more helpful to make criticisms that would serve to improve the work instead of altering its fundamental structure. But still, poor logic is better than no attempt at all, Tim.) [I disagree. QC is a long-form comic, not a gag-a-day, but he tries to be both. Sticking to long-form wouldn't alter the fundamental nature but it would make the comic suck a lot less. This is a common complaint among the elite of #xkcd-sucks (use a real nickname; generic mibbit ones are banned) on foonetic, who are better than you. -Ed.]

The second critique faults the QC formula for forcing Hanners to step out of character. Not only is this incorrect – if one were to follow Jeph’s twitter feed one would learn the precise reason the comic was made – it also suggests that the situation was forced and unrealistic because of the artist’s quest to create a comic with “day to day humor”. Again, I am in no way suggesting that Jeph Jacques’ work does not deserve criticism, and heavy criticism at that, but the logic at work here is pathetic. Since the strip is in no way relevant to the week’s plot (the subject of the purse never comes up again) the artist could easily have not drawn it if he deemed it a threat to established characterization. Hanners does make mistakes, it has been established, and the artist has no motivation to construct an unrealistic situation for the sake of a joke. When it comes to forcing humor, Jeph’s modus operandi consists of “witty banter in an otherwise normal situation”, not “breaking character for lulz”. The former deserves more criticism than the latter, which rarely if ever happens, and certainly does not happen here.

Also, calling Marten “Martin” is a mistake made by someone unfamiliar or uninterested in the work. If you aren’t invested in the work somehow, your critique loses relevance in the eyes of the reader. Being blatantly wrong displays ignorance, not analysis. To that end, the sentence “hey, we are just clearing ground for the eventual Martin/Hanners relationship” goes unexplained and thus makes no fucking sense. Saying random shit (such as the aforementioned “Jeff Jacks”) without a reason does not make you a critic or entertaining. It makes you an idiot. If content were calories, your post would be word salad.

Most of the other critiques attack the QC formula as well, suggesting that this post could easily have been a more general post about “the QC formula” instead of posting five separate comics and making virtually identical comments about each.

The next post is Carl’s: Scenes From a Multiverse: The First Few Months. This is criticism. It is content. Carl manages to say more (and sound more intelligent) in less space than the rest of you. It actually discusses what works well in the comic and what doesn’t. It’s not a day-by-day analysis of the comic because it doesn’t need a day-by-day analysis, discussing general trends is enough for Carl to make his points. The post is efficient, thoughtful, and well-written.

The following posts are more of Tim’s bullshit. The mindspillage is a bit more substantial this time, but again he fails to actually criticize any of the comics. Instead, he writes mocking summaries of each. Good job, Tim! You almost had me interested for a second there.

Then comes xkcdsuckstravaganza, which you wouldn’t know was one of Carl’s if the handy little column to the left didn’t tell you. Apparently Carl decided that his posts are too intelligent and interesting so instead he decided to do one Tim-style. A fair bit of real criticism still finds its way into some of the comments, suggesting Carl still has some work to do until he can waste our time as well as Tim can. But the quality is still not up to par.

Luckily the next post on Abstruse Goose makes up for it with more actual criticism and logic and reasoning and the things we’ve come to know and love Carl Wheeler for.

And finally the truly enraging one, Tim reads webcomics (October 23, 1010) [sic].

It begins with the comment “This one will be really short, mostly to piss off the folks who complain that my comments are too short.” Hilarious. Positively hilarious. Here’s the thing, Tim: mocking your audience is funny, mocking your audience’s criticism in lieu of responding to it makes you look like an idiot. You can do both, of course. For example, Andrew Hussie both mocks and responds to the criticism leveled at him on his Formspring, but the key is that he responds to it with a rational and well-reasoned argument. “Rob’s rants” [I object to this characterization -Ed.] and Carl’s FAQs on xkcdsucks address arguments made by the audience. “I’m gonna do whatever I wanna do” is not an argument, and because you haven’t gained any respect in our eyes yet, having displayed no ability whatsoever to pen a critique, it makes you look like the douche you are.

Shut up, Tim. Just shut up. Nobody wants to hear your bullshit two-sentence reactions that address exactly nothing. You don’t bother to support your point of view. You don’t give suggestions for improvement. Obviously we are all part of the webcomics.me hivemind and think exactly the same way as you do so you don’t have to bother doing such things as explaining what the fuck this garbage is you are posting.

I visited, and continue to visit, xkcdsucks because it always has interesting, well-argued criticism. I will not continue to visit webcomics.me because it has none of that. Any post not written by Carl is a waste of space on that site. Carl, either take the reins of your new site exclusively or come the fuck back here. “Serious about webcomics”? Hardly. Nothing there suggests any serious analysis. Even your commenters are less intelligent on this new blog; they do not bother to discuss or debate, only hate on every webcomic blindly for obscure reasons. What the fuck happened to the argument and discussion that made xkcdsucks what it is?

I know you want to expand, Carl, but this isn’t the way to do it. Having a bunch of lazy idiots make contentless posts, not in the spirit of criticism, not even in the spirit of entertainment, but in the hopes of getting murmurs of agreement from a brainwashed audience, of sparking some sort of superficial connection between poster and reader, why… it reminds me of a particular webcomic.

And it sucks.

[We will return Monday to your regularly scheduled hate. -Ed.]