Whither Webcomics?"It's my sincere belief that in ten years entire cottage industries will exist that do nothing but analyze the psychology behind horrible webcomics."
"Hey, why wait ten years?"
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Whither Webcomics?
| "It's morning in America, Hackenbush, and you work the nightshift." Tuesday, April 20, 2004 27. What the hell is he putting in his mouth? "I've never been able to get the butter into those square little pats. Since I was little, I tried to get it into the perfect square pat--not an easy task considering we always bought the spreadable butter." Oh, I see: there is showing and there is telling, and then there is explaining what you have to tell because the drawing doesn't show it properly. Yeah. I don't know how we all understood comics in the old days without LJs to explain them. We all must have been motherfucking geniuses. "And so ends the Government Padma storyline. :) Though there's still three more weeks of this Problematic episode left." So now in addition to a narration, this webcomic has a forecast. I don't think the Bible and Alice in Wonderland put together had this much coterminous commentary. 28. Only women are allowed to have normal bodies in Sandra's world "There's not much to be said in this case." Then why on earth does she keep saying it? Well, it is time to begin to fulfill my mission and analyze the psychology behind this horrible webcomic: I'm still trying to figure out the point of "Problematic"*. Sandra says it's a bridge to the real comic, "Friendly Hostility" (FH), wherein Sandra titillates her teen female fans with badly drawn soft-core gay porn. All well and good. She did develop a following for such doodles with "Boy Meets Boy". But "Problematic", as the set-up for FH, doesn't make much sense unless it is Sandra's way of acting out a relationship she would like to have. I can only speculate, but I believe that, in representing herself as the hefty Nefertari, she mothering her later creation of FH. I also believe she is trying to prove she's "normal" by drawing a heterosexual comic instead of a gay comic where all the boys are mistaken for girls unless you look closely and realize that all the boys are anorexics and only the women are normal sized, tending to fat because they all look alike (except for the fat). I'm not sure what happened to Sandra that caused her to end "Boy Meets Boy", but Problematic is definitively inferior stuff. Boy Meets Boy was at least funny and chic occasionally; "Problematic" hasn't been lowbrow funny or chic, if that's her intent (and I have no idea what her purported intent is). I suspect she is trying to win someone's approval, and this is causeing the bad art and worse scripts. I can only speculate, but it seems Sandra's desire for love and approval is more powerful than whatever creative discrimination she might possess. This is not new; there was a whole slew of books in the 80s to explain why so many women were so fucked up. Same dog, still hunts. In presenting herself as Nefertari and whomever as Padma, Sandra might be seeking to create and project the perfect, and perfectly safe relationship for herself. Of course any relationship can be safe and perfect as long as it stays on paper. The creation and maintenance of a fantasy, however public, is much simpler and, in many ways, neater than actually having something as messy as a real, in person relationship with another human being. Living in a fantasy is not new; putting it online is just another blight on the landscape of social maladjustment. It is now possible for pathetic creatures to develop a following of other pathetic creatures from the safety of his or her computer. Only time can tell us if this will be for good or ill, however, I still think these people need to get out more. It would do these poor creatures a world of good to get a job (one with psychological benefits), volunteer at the local charity, join the community theater; do something that involves other people (real ones). Otherwise they're just snuffing out any nascent social skills, and worse if they're living through Sandra's comic and not even creating their own. Get out there and live, kids! The world is not half as scary as it might seem to you. Honest. *The strip in progress is called "Problematic". Not only is there no explanation of that name on the site, there's no explanation as to why the site is called "Friendly Hostility", but the current strip is called "Problematic". I happen to know the strip is called "Problematic" because I happened to look in the archives once, but there's no explanation of that name there either. Go figure. Posted by Ginger Mayerson @ 06:06 PM PST [Link] |
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Erotica, Utopia and Judicial Proceedings Fodder Utopia ah, someday... |
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