The Hiatus is over! OoME is starting back up and we want to thank all the fans for being patient with us as we prepare the buffer for chapter 3. Now, as the twitter feed for today will show: OoME has come under scrutiny. That’s fine. We like hearing what people have to say and we love to have actual critiques. (One such poster has avidly informed the artist that her profile shots require some work and the artist in turn has worked on the profiles a bit in order to rectify this problem as she had thought that that aspect of her art was lacking as well).
Now, what I don’t like is that we’ve got people not coming to us about their concerns. I’ll address some of the thing that I browsed through while peeking at Bad webcomics.
Point one: A very important one to me is that some fans did not appreciate the ‘rape joke’ that was made. I apologize that this offended people, but I will warn you right now, OoME is not a comic about butterflies and happiness. While nothing explicit is going to happen, there are some very dark corners in this story. These have been planned and are part of the story. They are not put in there to be edgy or to generate traffic, these themes are in place for particular reasons that cannot be revealed at this time because it would be considered heavy spoilers.
Neither my wife nor I condone any kind of rape, and we do not seek to make those who are victims of this crime to feel uncomfortable. It was a jest, and I’m afraid that if you cannot take this lighthearted joke, then I must request that you inform us of how we have offended you so that we can reply and apologize.
Point two: The ‘sheltered little Jill doesn’t know what snow is. You’re right. This would be incredibly sheltered if this took place in our lives. There are some spoiler parts here, so I’m going to have to leave it at that.Just know that there is a reason and it will be revealed.
Point three: Lazy writing by having characters say their names. Hah. Yes. I never refer to my friends as ‘Joe’ or ‘Marc’ or ‘Paula’, No, I simply say: ‘Hey you’ and they know I’m talking to them. Now, if the characters were to yammer on saying: “Hey, Lucien Malroy, I want some cheese.” Then yes, that would be bad writing. Sadly, I’ve checked this over and gone over various dialogues, nowhere would any of the characters not say the name in the way they had. Now, if Lucien called Whistle ‘Wilfred’, then yeah. We’d have a problem.
Point four: OoME is not steampunk. Okay. I’ll bite: What is steampunk? So far (in two chapters) we have not divulged anything about the world, which is influenced heavily by ‘steam’. The world is obviously in a victorian-esque era, which has been seen and we’ve got a run down part of town with vents and stuff all over the place. So far, not a compelling argument.
Here’s the kicker though, you have to keep reading so that you as the audience can discover the world outside privileged life (What Jill is used to) and see the ‘new things’ through the protagonist’s eyes. Yes, it’s a gimmick, yes it’s there to keep people wanting to read more of the comic. Just because we’re doing this for fun doesn’t mean we don’t want to have excitement and wonder behind every new page.
And that’s my rant. As the writer of OoME, I love hearing what people think of our story, our world, our characters and their mannerisms. I love explaining things in long winded phrases and giving insight on the creative process behind my works.
Once we’ve reached the end of Chapter 3, the wife and I will consider putting in a forum for all of you who prefer not to have your comments ‘up in lights’. Until then, please don’t be afraid to tell us what you think under the comments section.
Critiques are the only way to be informed if there is a problem somewhere. While it may seem like I’m ‘defending’ OoMe in my rant, I assure you, this is simply an explanation as to why I think these opinions need to be talked about as I know there are some fans out there that are like-minded. This is just my way of letting you all know: Don’t worry, it get’s better and all will be explained 
Still building steam, (And patting his own ass in the process)
Jim
I *love* OoME. Yeah, it’s not “great literature” but it’s a fun romp with interesting multi-dimensional characters and an engaging storyline.
**Too much of the “comics” world is populated by adolescent males (or those who think like an adolescent male) and think anything that doesn’t involve overly-muscled men or unbelievably buxom women (all clad in Spandex, of course) with illogical and scientifically-impossible “powers” must a priori be “bad.” That’s why I am not a “comics” fan — I simply like a good story with interesting characters and if it happens to be told in a graphic format instead of one that is purely textual, so be it.
**The term “steampunk” seems to be one of the most malleable descriptions around. Taken in totality, it seems to be applied to anything set in the 1800′s since that was the “Age of Steam.” By that definition, “Jane Eyre” is a steampunk novel. Um, I think not
**I’m looking forward to learning more about the world of Cog as it is revealed. Knowing everything up front takes a lot of the fun out of things. Knowing everything about “Cathy” (as opposed to “Catherine” — Cathy’s mother) at the beginning would have taken a lot of the interest out of “Wuthering Heights.”
**If you want a “criticism” here’s one (and it’s awfully darn minor): In the first panel of the last page of Chapter 2 Jill is disparaging the idea of her being a Wind Elemental. How does Jill know she’s supposed to be a Wind Elemental. All I can find is Lucien telling her she is an Elemental. Perhaps she could infer the variety from the questions he asks, but I can’t find anyplace he actually calls her by that term in her presence. He does tell Daveed but unless Jill overheard that (which does not seem to be the case)….
**Gee, I’m hypersensitive to how rape is portrayed (two women I know and value are rape survivors) but I never saw anything that offended me. Accusing an unknown male of doing something “so you can have your way with me” is not an unreasonable statement for a female to make whether in a comic or real life. Onus is then on the male to prove his intentions are not dishonorable or confirm the accusation.
I like long-winded answers, too.
Keep up the good work. OoME is probably my favorite at the moment.
Excellent catch, Bill. You are indeed correct. Lucien never once said ‘Wind’ elemental. Was that an accident? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Why would Jill all of a sudden link herself to a wind elemental and not one of the other elements? Curious, no?
*Cackles maniacally* It’s actually a plot point. Very good on the catch, dude. You get a gold star!
Am I missing something? I googled bad webcomics and OOME and all I found was a forum with 2 posts on it. Is that seriously what this whole rant about? Because I have to be honest, this reads as really immature and it looks like you’re making a big deal out of nothing.
First of all, don’t just throw out the word “troll” when you don’t know how to use it properly. A troll does not equal a critic. A troll is someone who says things, that are usually offensive, to get a rise out of someone: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/trolling All I see on twitter is: “OMG the trolls are after us!” “Oh look at all these trolls!” “Love the trolls, they make us famous!” and it’s coming across as really childish. On the forum I only saw two people giving their honest opinions about OOME, which is definitely not trolling.
Secondly, they have a point. I did think OOME was steampunk as well, you do have way too many text bubbles on the pages and there are times where they are awkwardly placed and it makes the flow of reading a tad difficult. And yeah, the artwork and anatomy could definitely use some work.
Honestly, even though you say that you welcome people to give criticisms, this certainly doesn’t show it. Basically, this says to me that if someone gives you a critique you don’t like or maybe don’t agree it, instead of discussing it with them, you’ll first call them a troll (especially on twitter), you’ll post their comment up for all to see and the majority of your argument will be: “Well you’ll just have to wait and see what happens”, which doesn’t really fly. They made their judgements based off of what they’ve seen so far, if there’s something that they’re missing or not understanding, it’s up to you guys to convey your ideas better so it’s easier for the audience to understand. Not to mention the fact that the artist’s response to critique is: “I totally love getting critiques from nobodies on something I’m doing for fun and not charging for”. So apparently, we have to be somebody to critique you guys too. Whatever happened to ‘You don’t have to be a chef to know what good food tastes like’? The same certainly applies to art.
Sorry, but you lost a reader out of me. While I enjoyed the comic, nothing is more unattractive to me than artists with a bad attitudes who scream troll whenever they get a critique.
Ruth,
I’m sorry that you feel like this was an immature response to people who did not give their critiques to our site and instead put it on another. I’m guessing the sarcasm in our posts was misconceived or that there was an issue with communication.
The real result here from the rant is I found someone commenting on issues that they had with the comic, but not on our site. I replied with justification because some fans may have the same outlook as the reader who posted on bad webcomics and I, valuing my reader base, decided to inform them that if they had the same concerns that we would be addressing them.
Also, I’d like to point out: Critiquing our page on another website and not informing us is not actually a critique, hence the troll call.
I’m actually really glad that I got a reply on my rant, but I’m sad that you’ve decided to stop reading OoME over my reply.
As you were keen to point out about the artwork, I’d like to rebuttal with: I never defended it. The artist is not a professional and she does this out of wanting to. Other than art through school and the basics of an animation course, the artist is raw. If you want to bash on someone who is providing you a free comic over some anatomical issues, then that is your prerogative.
To another point: If I were to cast out a net over a group of 20 people and ask them: What is steampunk to you, I would receive 21 variations. So while it may not be what you perceive to be steampunk, then it’s just not meant for you and we apologize.
I would like to play the bigger person here and claim I did not call out the people who posted, but I did by saying the website ‘bad webcomics’. Sadly, had they commented here, I could have conversed with them civilly and received constructive criticism in a private fashion, rather than rant on my own website based on their personal opinions. This is the way things went.
I will not apologize for my rant. I will not take back a word I said. I do like critiques, I do like having people give me useful feedback. I do not however, like people bashing my webcomic on someone else’s site unless they first have the decency to inform us of the problem so we can try and fix it.
So, to (insert name here, you know who you are): Thank you current viewer who has given us a critique on profiles. The artist has taken your information to heart and has been working on her profile art in order to have it mesh better with the rest of the comic.
And to end this long winded reply.
Ruth. I’m sorry you felt this way about my reply. I fear that perhaps you have taken this reply too personally. While we don’t mind ‘somebody’ critiquing us, we’d prefer it be ‘somebody’ on our website and not someone who made their account 3 days prior to posting on bad webcomics, this way we can actually discuss it and not simply rant in a long winded way.
P.S.: Please allow the chef time to get the ingredients ready and put it together before saying what their cooking isn’t to your liking.
Sarcasm never works on the internet since it requires a tone of voice to convey it properly. It’s especially hard to discern when it’s in a reply where some parts are serious responses and others are sarcasm. There were a lot of points in my response that were misconstrued, so I hope you don’t mind that I clear them up.
Okay, just because someone posted a critique on another site and didn’t inform you doesn’t make them a troll. You can’t change the meaning of a word to suit your needs. Based off the post, it seemed like this person was looking for a 2nd opinion to see if they were judging your comic too harshly since they are, by their own admittance, picky about steampunk comics. I don’t see any intent on their part to upset you guys.
I never accused you of defending the artwork. Not once, so please don’t put words in my mouth. I merely agreed with the critique that the word bubbles per page need to be reduced and placed better and the artwork and anatomy could use some once, and apparently saying these things need some work and could be better is bashing the artist? If you could, explain to me how saying things could be better is bashing the artist as I find that accusation overblown and out of line when you have said that you guys accept critique. If you’re looking for more specifics about what could be better, I can certainly give those.
My steampunk comment was misconstrued as well. You said that this is not a steampunk comic, which is why I said that I thought it was in my comment. Although now that you say that you were being sarcastic, I’m assuming that was part of the sarcasm so you can ignore that comment, since I did perceive this comic to be steampunk.
It’s a little unfair that you’re so upset at them considering you never posted anywhere on your site that you prefer critiques to brought to you instead of being off-sight. How were they supposed to know that that upset you? And aren’t you doing the same thing by responding to their comment without informing them?
So, no one can discuss or critique your comic, unless it’s on your own website? That’s a rather ridiculous stipulation. If you were looking for a discussion, why not post on that forum?
As for the PS, the cooking analogy I made was about the fact that anyone, not just artists, can critique something, it has nothing to do with how to build a story. Again, I never said “the cooking” wasn’t to my liking, I said I liked OOME in my last paragraph, it’s the attitudes shown here that I don’t like. I’m not interested in follow artists who bring drama to their own comics, especially considering the starting point of all this is rather miniscule.
Hey Ruth,
Welcome back, glad to see we can continue our little pow-wow. Tina below has put in some excellent points that I felt really hit the nail on the head here for troll vs. critic.
However, I’m still a wordy a-hole, so I’m going to just address some minor things.
Original quote: “And yeah, the artwork and anatomy could definitely use some work.”
Yes. You did mention the artwork. That one line did allow for a segue into why I didn’t rebuttal against the art comments. If you perhaps meant something else, well, it was missed.
“It’s a little unfair that you’re so upset at them considering you never posted anywhere on your site that you prefer critiques to brought to you instead of being off-sight. How were they supposed to know that that upset you? And aren’t you doing the same thing by responding to their comment without informing them?”
I’m afraid I must prefer to go on the side of common sense. If I wanted the artist or the writer or the mechanic to know I had a problem with their work or that I thought they could do it better, I would not go down to the ‘better business bureau’ (I have no other analogies to go with this) without first informing the actual people/person. This is a moot point. I shouldn’t have to inform people: Hey, if you have a problem, tell us. It’s kind of what a ‘critique’ is.
On your second point, I concede. You’re right, I should make a profile at Bad Webcomics and totally reply to the person who made their account specifically to ‘critique’ OoME. Wait. No. That’s not helpful at all. Bad Webcomics receives quite a few more hits and are filled with quite a few more trolls. So far as I can tell, most of OoME’s fans are well informed, intellectual individuals who are capable of civil conversation. I’d prefer to stick with the good crowd and not ‘feed the trolls’ as it were
“So, no one can discuss or critique your comic, unless it’s on your own website? That’s a rather ridiculous stipulation. If you were looking for a discussion, why not post on that forum?”
Oh, by all means, critique away our comic! Yell it on high and low, throw it in the mud and raise it to the rafters. Just tell us about it so we CAN READ IT and be informed as to why people don’t like it and what they think we need to work on. Posting a critique on another site without informing us is a pretty dick move.
It’s not too hard to inform us, either. We have twitter profiles on the right and allow anyone to create an account and reply to threads. Heck, I’ve even provided my email. The issue here, again, that I will point out is that giving a “critique” of the ‘webcomic’ on another site that would never get back to us through normal means. I don’t mind people talking about the site or word of mouth or what have you. Don’t misconstrue. I mind when people decide to troll by ‘critiquing’ without actually telling us.
A little note: Your link earlier points to John Gabriel’s Greater Internet F***wad theory. I actually believe that’s precisely what happened with the original posters at Bad Webcomics. If they had posted those replies here, it wouldn’t have been as troll-y. Still pretty troll-y, as Tina has pointed out below, but not as troll-y as it is because ‘total anonymity’ would be lessened to ‘greater anonymity’.
“I’m not interested in follow artists who bring drama to their own comics, especially considering the starting point of all this is rather miniscule.”
You’re right. This is a miniscule starting point. It’s so miniscule that it matters to such a miniscule webcomic. My reply was to ‘preemptively’ inform our fan base, some of which I’m sure have their worries about what our ‘critics’ have brought up, that we will be addressing these things.
If I hadn’t addressed the point, then there would be a higher likelihood that potential fans would continue this trend of posting critiques without informing us. Now, however, once it’s been shown that we will react, or at least read it, our fans may find that it is worthwhile to actually post their questions/concerns about OoME because, hell, if I reply to such a small thing with such a wall of text, obviously I have the time to reply to their question/comment
Thank you for your time, Ruth.
Trying to Nip the problem in the bud,
Jim
P.S.: As short as my reply was intended to be, when I start writing, I have trouble stopping. Apologies for the long winded re-reply.
I find Tina’s arguments full of flaws to be honest. I’ve already proven that her argument that it’s impossible to post on the forum and that you guys had no way to communicate with the posters on that forum was wrong (you’ll see my comment at the bottom by the name of Ruth McCarmen http://badwebcomics.wikidot.com/forum/t-551134/out-of-my-element#post-1548438) And going back to my point of sarcasm being easily misunderstood, Tina is taking the front post at face value and I’m willing to bet that post was meant to be facetious. I highly doubt the people over at there believe that they can improve the media with their “bile, hatred, and rage”.
Making one big blanket generalization about everyone on the forum based on the post on the front page, that was probably only written by the creator of the forum, to be foolish. That would be like saying everyone over at 4chan are trolls and ignoring the fact that they have an art critique forum that is very helpful. Or that saying that Deviantart only consists of 13 year old anime fans, art thieves and vaginas and ignoring the fact that there are some really well known artists who are amazing on deviantart as well.
I apologize for addressing Tina’s post in a reply to you, but I find I have nothing to say to someone who was so condescending in their post and has the gall to end with the statement: “It’s like being oversensititve about the rape jokes – it’s all the cutesy latest fashion”. Complaining about a rape joke is never oversensitive. Ever. Here’s a link to an article about someone who is a rape survivor explaining why joking about is harmful to someone who’s been through such a traumatizing event: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9766-The-R-Word Go educate yourself.
Now back to my reply to Jim, I think our responses are missing each other. I know that I talked about the artwork. My 3rd paragraph last time is reiterating how I talked about the artwork in the first post. To clarify:
You said: “As you were keen to point out about the artwork, I’d like to rebuttal with: I never defended it.”
I responded: “I never accused you of defending the artwork. Not once, so please don’t put words in my mouth.”
Your response: “Yes. You did mention the artwork. That one line did allow for a segue into why I didn’t rebuttal against the art comments.”
You see how your responses are kind of missing what I was saying? You agreed in your first comment that I talked about the art and made sure to clarify that you didn’t defend it. I clarified back that I never said to you anything along the lines of: “oh you’re just defending the art” or “don’t defend it!”. All I did was agree with the initial comments on the wiki forum that some things could be worked on artwise.
Well as I assumed, the OP never informed you of their critique because they weren’t sure if they were being too picky or not and they were on the fence about OOME (hence the post in the: “is this comic bad?” forum). If you go back to the forum, the OP addresses to you why they didn’t come to you about their critique so I’ll just leave it at that since that’s an issue between you two.
And judging by the conversation that has continued on the forum, they seem quite capable of a civil conversation. Again, it’s going back to making one big assumption and placing everyone under that same blanket. I don’t know how you expect anyone from over there to come here and have a conversation with you now when you inferred that they’re uncivil trolls. You don’t really expect them to want to talk to you after that, do you? :\
You’re right when you say that it’s certainly easy to inform you of something, but the posters over there are correct as well when they say that they’re under no obligation to have to tell you if they’re going to critique your work. As much as you would like that, it’s not a must to tell someone you’re going to critique them. Food critics and health inspectors and several other types of inspectors never gives a heads up either.
There’s nothing wrong with addressing concerns, especially the one about the rape joke, but there was a better way to do it. This was not the best way to respond to it and you could’ve just made a post addressing the joke and end with letting people know that if they have a concern or critique that they can certainly approach you guys about it. I never would’ve known about the post over at the wiki forums if you didn’t point it out to everyone, so in a way, pointing out the source of drama was kind of like shooting yourself in the foot.
I apologize for the delay, I’m rather busy at the moment so this will be my last post unless you have any questions or need clarification from me, especially considering those over at the bad webcomics wiki have addressed your concerns themselves, which makes this really more of an issue between you and them. Thank you for your time as well and for not being condescending to me during this discussion. And it’s fine that your post is long, so was mine. Take care.
Heh, heh, heh. 40+ years of software development I have a pretty good eye for things that don’t seem to be logical.
I also worked on a “non-professional” newspaper and was known as, “The Proofreader From Hell” for good cause.
The anatomy is just fine as Alli draws it. This is a (forgive the term) cartoon for crying out loud, not portraiture. Perhaps Modesty Blaise or Steve Canyon or Judge Parker or Prince Valiant had really accurate anatomy but most superheroes?
Sheesh!
(You’ll probably have to look the comics I named up on Wikipedia. I used to read them “live”)
Glad to have you around, Bill.
Please do continue to point out our (Mostly my) spelling mistakes. There’s nothing more facepalming than going back to a previous chapter and seeing a misspelled word that’s been up there for months
Reasons the poster(s) can be considered trolls:
1. Context of the website hosting the comments:
“The Bad Webcomics Wiki Improving our media, with hatred”
-Please note: “With hatred”; please pause a moment, for reflection on known occasions when hatred is used constructively. Hmm… nope, pretty sure that is intentionally inflammatory on its own.
2. While still on the subject of the website context; here’s what they greet you with when you create an account (which I did to provide context, and test to see how feasible it would’ve been to simply respond / converse with them instead of an indirect reply):
“Welcome to the Wiki
Warning: All content on the BWW is Not Suitable For Work, potentially detrimental to mental health, and is filled with caustic humor. You Have Been Warned.
The Internet. A wondrous place, filled with all sorts of information for you to unveil. A place without restrictions, a place where the only limits are that of the imagination and bandwith. Now the internet is home to myriad industries encouraging people to create and express themselves in thousands of unthinkable ways. This is the birth of a whole new society, a culture, that would share all that humanity could produce. Unfortunately, most of it is pretty bad.
Webcomics are a media that demonstrates Sturgeon’s law quite well, because 90% of everything is shit. Bad webcomics are the spawn of this wondrous system. Daily hundreds if not thousands of aspiring creators try to reach the masses with abysmal works of fiction; and they are often left ignorant of their own plight, Bad webcomic creators who are allowed to believe the lie that their work is without flaw and that their critics are just assholes.
At BWW, we are more than just assholes, we are assholes with valid points. We will give valuable criticism and suggestions to those that so badly pervert one of our favorite story telling mediums, while destroying those creations which do not deserve to continue.
We will improve our media with our bile, hatred, and rage. We will protect those who try with equal energy. We are the Bad Webcomics Wiki, and we are qualified to do the things we do.”
Let’s piece this apart for some of the choice bits:
*”Unfortunately, most of it is pretty bad.” – so, they’re setting up to focus entirely on negative. Not inherently constructive, but, hey, some people can make houses out of mud.
*”Webcomics are a media that demonstrates Sturgeon’s law quite well, because 90% of everything is shit.” – Hmm, this mud smells funny. I think someone pooped in it. This is getting harder to work with.
*”and they are often left ignorant of their own plight, Bad webcomic creators who are allowed to believe the lie that their work is without flaw and that their critics are just assholes.” – okay, this one would almost seem like it would be nailing Jim right now, except that it is stating belief that they’re without flaw, which doesn’t seem to explicitly be the case;
“When the page was originally created, we realized we had put far too many actual panels in the page and the layout was cluttered as sin.” (C1 01)
“Yes backgrounds, the bane of my existence!” (C1 02)
“This page was a bit challenging namely because I wasn’t entirely sure how to draw frost/ice on the pipes.” (C01 03)
“Alright so first off I know some of the anatomy in the first panel is a bit off. It was drawn a while ago and the pose itself was tricky to work with.” (C1 17 – Oh, hey, anatomy, that was relevant, wasn’t it?)
“That said when ever he is on a page it tends to be wordy as hell!” (C1 18 – Oh, look, they even address the wordiness)
“The artist would like to tell people that she hates Lucien when he talks too much” (C2 08 – Another comment on the wordiness!)
“There are some people who would say that this style of ‘directing’ doesn’t lend itself well to a comic.” (C2 15 – Albeit, part of a bigger comment)
-So, huh, maybe not the humblest of a team; there is also a lot more comments that are “asspatting”. “I like how x-y-z-ß-Γ came out” – that’s part of the “amateur artist” detail; you can find it across countless webcomics, and all over DeviantArt as well. Amateur writers, too. Oh, and we’ll avoid the subject of ‘professionals’ who write reviews for themselves under pseudo names, because there’s no way to trudge into that territory without trolling a little.
*”At BWW, we are more than just assholes, we are assholes with valid points. We will give valuable criticism and suggestions to those that so badly pervert one of our favorite story telling mediums, while destroying those creations which do not deserve to continue.” – Where to start here; firstly, they’re calling themselves assholes – that just isn’t a good setup, though points for honesty. Secondly, they say they’re going to give valuable criticism and suggestions; awesome! …then they go into what can easily sound like pre-emptive trolling, in that they go straight to saying such people are going to “badly pervert” the medium, and that they are going to be “destryoing those creastions which do not deserve to continue”. See, the line between critique and troll, is the context, and this, here, is just bile. Speaking of bile, let’s move on to the last bit.
*”We will improve our media with our bile, hatred, and rage. We will protect those who try with equal energy. We are the Bad Webcomics Wiki, and we are qualified to do the things we do.” -Bile, hatred, and rage. You know what you do with those? You destroy. Criticism is meant to be part of the creation process, to help improve creations. Not to destroy. As for that last line there, a repeat; “we are qualified” – by whom? The fact you can host a webpage? That makes my seventeen year old neighbor qualified to give medical advice, then.
” – “There’s an uncomfortable, unnecessary amount of references to rape, seen in the expectations of the female protagonist when regarding the male protagonist.” ; I’m not even going to rewrite the last line – it’s in the pool of needless, which contributes to “troll” over “critic”.
3. Context, context, context; the entirity of their postings, has wording that is excessively negative. Here’s some ways their issues could’ve been stated more in the mindset of criticism rather than trollism:
*”Weird anatomy that doesn’t really get better, even a year into production.” – “There seems to be some problems with their anatomy, which has stayed consistant as the story progresses”
*It’s supposed to be steampunk, but so far I guess that just means slapping gears onto people’s clothes and making them talk like snooty aristocrats?” – “This comic is labeled as steampunk, but the only signs of this seems to be in dialogue and gear accessories, which is not sufficient.”
*Multiple references to rape in really trivializing ways. The female protagonist seems convinced that the male protagonist is trying to rape her, and talks about it so often that it makes her seem disappointed that she is not being raped???
*”A lot of showing instead of telling, and no one ever stops talking. Average text bubble count per page has got to be in the double digits.” “Both writer and artist seem to do a lot of self-asspatting in the author comments which is just a little weird.” – These have both been addressed; the former, most especially in the artist’s own complaints that one of the characters is too chatty; the latter, in the fact that, again, amateurs tend to be really proud when something turns out well in their eyes – I don’t know how many amateur artists you know, but they tend to be really overly critical of their own work, and overly pleasantly surprised when they think something is good.
*”Really bad writing and text bubble placement.” “Plot points seem to rely on the cast being morbidly stupid or willing to stand around doing witty banter while people escape.” “A lot of other things that are small but still really niggling.” – Very simply, there’s nothing at all creative or constructive about these comments. They had the potential to be, but they don’t give any detail as to why the writing and text bubble placement is bad, why they think the plot points rely on such, and the last one is simply self defeating.
*Now, I have to give some credit to the response on it; the second post actually is better done, in that they give reasons to defend their points. Most of what he says, would need a proper response to direct him to further context, as well as some simple rationalization. For example, he has a complain about the main character’s name being revealed in a thought bubble; I’d like to ask him if he’s never had an occasion of mental notes or mental criticism. He’s doing a lot better than I am if that’s actually the case, and for some reason, I really doubt that to be true. The comment of it being absurd that the main character doesn’t know what snow is, directs it at being her not possibly being able to be that sheltered, rather than asking what kind of setting would enable that scenario.
The speech bubble comment, I’ll admit I found no problem with, but I also read an excessive amount of comics and manga, and have found it to be a common practice when a conversation is carried in one panel, that you read left – right – down one left – down one right, etc. So I can see how that would confuse someone not used to such, sure. It confused me when I was new to it, but I also learn quickly.
4. The moment of truth! So, now I’m going to post a respone on their own thread, and-
“Permission error
Please note:
Sorry, you can not add new post in this thread. Only members of this site, site administrators and perhaps selected moderators are allowed to do it.”
Huh, that’s funny, I became a member of the site specifically for this purpose. Maybe I need to refresh. Let me try opening a new window, and going to the forum again, so I can respond.
“Permission error
Please note:
Sorry, you can not add new post in this thread. Only members of this site, site administrators and perhaps selected moderators are allowed to do it.”
Huuuuuhhhh…. so… if I, a new member of the site, can’t go and comment on the post to converse with them… how exactly was Alli or Jim supposed to do so?
5. Ooo, oo, I know! Webcomics have NEWS sections that they can post in since they’re the artist and writer! http://www.oomecomic.com/?p=503 – And look, Jim’s done exactly that!
6. So how were they supposed to comment where the team could address it? Ooo, ooo, I know this one too! Hey, look – EVERY single comic’s page has a comment box! You can post criticisms of each page, right there on the page you have a problem with! *gasp!*
So, in short; they could’ve easily informed Jim & Alli by posting anywhere on this site. Jim & Alli, can’t exactly respond to theirs. What the commenters posted, was not inherently inflammatory; it’s how they went about it, that is wrong, and very troll ugly. On the internet, it’s all about context, and their context, is very simply bad. It’s self-proclaimed bad. Maybe you disagree, and I’ve just wasted my time and research with this rant. You know what, I’m okay with that. This is the internet, you have the freedom to post whatever you want, to believe whatever you want. And honestly, most people aren’t looking to be proven wrong, carry a conversation, inform, or learn; they’re looking to say what they want and to argue their side stubbornly until it’s all just a mess.
Oh, and just to actually be a troll – He’s not putting words in your mouth, he’s putting them on your screen; no words are coming out of your mouth, they’re coming out of your keyboard.
[See, that's trolling; I'm saying that to be a dick, not to criticize or inform you. It is a criticism, but it's done in a bad context, intentionally.]
People do overuse “troll” these days; people also like to overlook that there are a lot of trolls, some unintentional ones simply because they don’t *try* to do thorough research for their arguments, don’t take the time to find means to go about it, and just want to be heard. It’s like being oversensititve about the rape jokes – it’s all the cutesy latest fashion, but the context is ignored.
[I hate Tosh.0, the one that made it fashionable, but even that incident ignores context - who in their right mind goes to a shock comic after a traumatic experience?]
Peace, love, and knowledge.
~Tina B.C.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Actually, I probably couldn’t have even gotten close.
Thank you, Tina.
Ruth, I’m replying to my own post rather than yours… because for some reason it won’t let me reply to yours.
Firstly, allow me to say, that it’s a first impression thing; if you set it up like that, even as sarcasm, it’s making you look bad even if it’s not the case.
Secondly, for the rape joke thing; there is still an oversensitivity problem. It’s like with any “dark” or otherwise heated subject, you will always have some people who react more strongly to it than others.
I am a rape survivor myself; my stepfather was an abusive alcoholic, and I suffered every kind of abuse in existence from him through my teen years, until I finally just ran away and refused to return to my mother’s house while he was there and still drinking.
Yes, such jokes are typically very distasteful and many bother me; but I also take the time to put them into proper context. Is the joke being made that someone should be raped, deserves to be raped, etc? Fuck no, that’s terrible, get rid of that. Is the joke that someone misconstrues a situation as such? Eh, okay, I can see that for the situation, tell me what happens next.
Relatively short; am tired, am waiting on something more important, and have just lost all interest in this whole ordeal. Eventually, one just has to stop beating the horse, let it die, and move on.
This is not a rape joke (it’s a misunderstanding of someone in a panic!)
This and this is a rape joke.
Keep ‘em straight, eh?
Hmm.
Thanks for finding those examples, Zenzibar.
Thankyou! Finally another person understands that Jill was in a panic and she was scared. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her (espically with what she was hearing from the other side of the door) and she was completely vulnerable. There were two possible questions going though her head when she heard them talking are they going to kill me or are they going to rape me? Aftering hearing the statement “Once I’m done with her, she’s all yours.” kinda summed it up for her.
Make sure to use both hands for patting your butt! It’s the only way to do it thoroughly!!