- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
But who cares if it's easy for the people you're killing anyway?
Bad webcomics
- Thread starter wagglyplacebo
- Start date
Ensok
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2021
I feel a little bad about making this post in the "Bad Webcomics" thread, but I need to talk about Something Positive. I feel bad because compared to what mostly gets posted here it's not nearly that bad, but frankly with the dive it's taken in the latter half of its existence (and the total lack of an actually good general thread for webcomics on KF) I have to talk about it here.
Recently I binged through the entire comic, all 23 years of it. I originally had been following it for a while in the past but sort of lost interest and stopped reading for natural reasons back sometime in 2016. Although I actually couldn't remember any plotline in detail past 2012. There are reasons for that. So anyways first off I'd like to praise Something Positive for a few things, for longer than most webcomics it kept to a consistent release schedule and often got out over 20 pages a month for over a decade. That's impressive and most webcomics wish they could have that consistency and staying power. Secondly for a long time it was really funny, fairly repetitive and some of the snark and stuffed aimed at easy targets isn't as funny anymore but I still enjoyed the humor of the comic for a while. Third is it's actually pretty prescient and predicted a lot of bullshit that would happen in the world later (which makes the later decline of the comic even worse). Fourth is that despite the comic always having a liberal bent with how pro-lgbt and other stuff it is, it makes sense, and it feels natural in the early years. The comic started late 2001, well before all our current cultural bullshit and modern politics crap, and it was always present in the comic so I know the artist wasn't doing it just for brownie points. A lot of the comic is autobiographical and a lot of characters are based on real people he knew, and considering where he lived and his work in theater and art it makes sense. It would be like getting angry at a comic based in San Francisco for having gay people in it.
And lastly the characters are just mostly really fun and develop in real time. Because the comic goes at the pace of the real world, you see characters grow and change, some naturally leave the core cast and others get added. In the first half of the comic's run this was a really good thing about it.
Unfortunately there's a reason I'm talking about the comic here and it is because it sadly goes downhill in the last ten years of its existence. The first decline to me is the 2014-2015 years where the tone and quality of the comic changes and takes a but of a dive, but it's still not so bad, just not as good. A lot of new characters get introduced and a lot of older ones who never got a proper conclusion to their stories start getting written out. Like Nancy. Nancy was basically the biggest and most common member of the cast outside of the main four for 8 years and then she basically just disappears without much explanation like some others. She just stops appearing. There were so many potential storylines never developed with her. Kharisma disappears for two and a half years and for a while I thought she was totally written out of the story. This is the case with many others. You mainly get to see what's going on with Davan, Vanessa, Peejee, Aubrey and Jason and their immediate family. Even characters like Monette are basically dropped for years at a time.
Now part of the reason for this is because starting mainly around 2017, Randy's output decreased significantly. And then decreased far more around 2020 for a variety of reasons. So a year is still passing by but far less is happening. The thing is I don't really blame him for this entirely. He's been doing it for a long time, he got married, had a kid, and has clearly had depression for a long time, but in the end it's still led to a decline in quality and amount of content for Something Positive. One of the biggest issues is how the comic has basically become a vehicle for Randy to talk about his depression and Davan has been reduced to a constantly depressed sad-sack. The comic just isn't fun anymore, all the fun and excitement has been sucked out. Which is the other side of the comic having a natural timeline. The characters are all in their 40's now, their lives are different, and crazy stuff doesn't happen as much. Honestly in the past five years the best storyline has been Fred's death and that was obviously not a fun storyline.
And there's another sharp decline in 2017 and then an even sharper decline in 2019 and now Randy is entirely running on fumes and the comic just feels dead. I read through these past ten years worth of comics hoping for a solid conclusion or evolution of Kharisma's story and it never happened, so many possible plotline with Mike, another one of the most prominent characters, were just abandoned as Randy's production went down. Nothing will be done with Ollie, or Kyle, or so many other side characters who have just faded away. I think the true sign of the comic's death was 2023, when "Old Familiar Faces" was abandoned. At the beginning of every year a few comics would come out showing what old members of the cast were up to, and without a word it just wasn't there anymore. It's such a sad and empty death of a comic that was once so vibrant and full of characters. There have still been some good comics even recently in 2024, but it also feels like half of what he's posted this year has been filler art or real life comics about Randy and not the Something Positive cast.
As of right now the last two comics he's posted, which are the only comics he's posted in the past month, are "Burnt Out Filler".
So I'm pretty sad having read through these last ten years of it but I'd still recommend the first half of the comic to be honest. Unfortunately after 2016 the comic also started to get more directly political and talk about current day things too. And the lgbt stuff started getting really over the top and didn't feel as natural. This comic didn't talk about 9/11, it glanced over elections and didn't say who voted for who, even Trump in 2016, it didn't talk about Gamergate, and one of the only things it ever touched on was the Boston Marathon Bombing because half the cast lives in Boston. But Covid? Holy shit did we get a lot of covid, among other things in the past few years. And it's just fucking odd because the comic never really went out of its way to do that.
But if you want, just stop at 2013. The last strip of 2013 is a perfectly good place to stop. It's actually a really nice and fairly conclusive ending. That's where I would stop if I ever felt like rereading however many years down the road:
Recently I binged through the entire comic, all 23 years of it. I originally had been following it for a while in the past but sort of lost interest and stopped reading for natural reasons back sometime in 2016. Although I actually couldn't remember any plotline in detail past 2012. There are reasons for that. So anyways first off I'd like to praise Something Positive for a few things, for longer than most webcomics it kept to a consistent release schedule and often got out over 20 pages a month for over a decade. That's impressive and most webcomics wish they could have that consistency and staying power. Secondly for a long time it was really funny, fairly repetitive and some of the snark and stuffed aimed at easy targets isn't as funny anymore but I still enjoyed the humor of the comic for a while. Third is it's actually pretty prescient and predicted a lot of bullshit that would happen in the world later (which makes the later decline of the comic even worse). Fourth is that despite the comic always having a liberal bent with how pro-lgbt and other stuff it is, it makes sense, and it feels natural in the early years. The comic started late 2001, well before all our current cultural bullshit and modern politics crap, and it was always present in the comic so I know the artist wasn't doing it just for brownie points. A lot of the comic is autobiographical and a lot of characters are based on real people he knew, and considering where he lived and his work in theater and art it makes sense. It would be like getting angry at a comic based in San Francisco for having gay people in it.
And lastly the characters are just mostly really fun and develop in real time. Because the comic goes at the pace of the real world, you see characters grow and change, some naturally leave the core cast and others get added. In the first half of the comic's run this was a really good thing about it.
Unfortunately there's a reason I'm talking about the comic here and it is because it sadly goes downhill in the last ten years of its existence. The first decline to me is the 2014-2015 years where the tone and quality of the comic changes and takes a but of a dive, but it's still not so bad, just not as good. A lot of new characters get introduced and a lot of older ones who never got a proper conclusion to their stories start getting written out. Like Nancy. Nancy was basically the biggest and most common member of the cast outside of the main four for 8 years and then she basically just disappears without much explanation like some others. She just stops appearing. There were so many potential storylines never developed with her. Kharisma disappears for two and a half years and for a while I thought she was totally written out of the story. This is the case with many others. You mainly get to see what's going on with Davan, Vanessa, Peejee, Aubrey and Jason and their immediate family. Even characters like Monette are basically dropped for years at a time.
Now part of the reason for this is because starting mainly around 2017, Randy's output decreased significantly. And then decreased far more around 2020 for a variety of reasons. So a year is still passing by but far less is happening. The thing is I don't really blame him for this entirely. He's been doing it for a long time, he got married, had a kid, and has clearly had depression for a long time, but in the end it's still led to a decline in quality and amount of content for Something Positive. One of the biggest issues is how the comic has basically become a vehicle for Randy to talk about his depression and Davan has been reduced to a constantly depressed sad-sack. The comic just isn't fun anymore, all the fun and excitement has been sucked out. Which is the other side of the comic having a natural timeline. The characters are all in their 40's now, their lives are different, and crazy stuff doesn't happen as much. Honestly in the past five years the best storyline has been Fred's death and that was obviously not a fun storyline.
And there's another sharp decline in 2017 and then an even sharper decline in 2019 and now Randy is entirely running on fumes and the comic just feels dead. I read through these past ten years worth of comics hoping for a solid conclusion or evolution of Kharisma's story and it never happened, so many possible plotline with Mike, another one of the most prominent characters, were just abandoned as Randy's production went down. Nothing will be done with Ollie, or Kyle, or so many other side characters who have just faded away. I think the true sign of the comic's death was 2023, when "Old Familiar Faces" was abandoned. At the beginning of every year a few comics would come out showing what old members of the cast were up to, and without a word it just wasn't there anymore. It's such a sad and empty death of a comic that was once so vibrant and full of characters. There have still been some good comics even recently in 2024, but it also feels like half of what he's posted this year has been filler art or real life comics about Randy and not the Something Positive cast.
As of right now the last two comics he's posted, which are the only comics he's posted in the past month, are "Burnt Out Filler".
So I'm pretty sad having read through these last ten years of it but I'd still recommend the first half of the comic to be honest. Unfortunately after 2016 the comic also started to get more directly political and talk about current day things too. And the lgbt stuff started getting really over the top and didn't feel as natural. This comic didn't talk about 9/11, it glanced over elections and didn't say who voted for who, even Trump in 2016, it didn't talk about Gamergate, and one of the only things it ever touched on was the Boston Marathon Bombing because half the cast lives in Boston. But Covid? Holy shit did we get a lot of covid, among other things in the past few years. And it's just fucking odd because the comic never really went out of its way to do that.
But if you want, just stop at 2013. The last strip of 2013 is a perfectly good place to stop. It's actually a really nice and fairly conclusive ending. That's where I would stop if I ever felt like rereading however many years down the road:
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
You're fine. I think this is a general webcomic discussion and bitching thread; if it pisses you off, then to you its a bad webcomic.
laughs in Sluggy Freelance, Freefall, and GPF
There is a lot wrong with Something Positive. The character develops are not one of those things.
Sort of as you said, the queers and fags in the comic - before I dropped it around 2014 at least no character was gay. There were characers who ALSO HAPPENED to be gay.
Also a degenerate hedonist with theater types, really everyone was some flavor of bi.
Depressoid Randy was having the time of his life with everyone having the same social life he did.
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2023
Jfc, Sluggy Freelance is still going. I remember I just stopped caring some time around 2008, I think. I can't even imagine what 16 more years of incomprehensible, goofy-ass lore has done to the comic.
And it looks like shit. If I was Pete Wossname, I'd be tempted to slit my throat after a quarter century of doing this.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
Its still going but extremely inconsistent since... 2015 or something?
But for almost 2 decades nigga was doing 7-day updates with a Color Sunday Ok after like 2005 or something it was a bunch of guest strips but still.
The sad thing is the current storyline is actually pretty good and almost back to form, but the irregular update schedule makes it hard to stay invested and the slow releases but intricate plot mean you've forgotten half the shit that's going on. Pete at least posts reference links.
Art was never Sluggy/Pete's strong suite, that looks fine. The girl (Gwen) looks jacked up because she's become part-book.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
He said "regular updates", Fred hasn't ever had a consistent update schedule.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Why is it that shitty current year webcomics, no matter how bad they get, are never even enjoyable for their badness? Even absolutely atrocious garbage like Electric Retard (from a literal pedophile) and Morning Glory (mostly cut and paste retardation) were oddly enjoyable just for how bad they were. Oh and Billy the Heretic, the bizarrely dumb comic about some goy being adoptively raised by the Jewiest Jews of all time. Nevertheless, occasionally funny.
Never mind pre-webcomics like Jack Chick tracts which were compulsively enjoyable and similarly godawful.
The only current cartoonist in the really bad but enjoyable sense now is Tatsuya Ishida, Sinfest dude who seems to have spend 24 years or so going from one insane political ideology to the next and is actually someone I now agree with a lot other than the anti-Semitism which almost seems gratuitous.
This isn't even "so bad it's good" territory because the art style is actually strangely appealing and he has a good grasp on composition, paneling, etc. It's just that the actual content is often bizarre and if you didn't know what he's saying you might just think he's insane. Which I think he is, sort of.
Never mind pre-webcomics like Jack Chick tracts which were compulsively enjoyable and similarly godawful.
The only current cartoonist in the really bad but enjoyable sense now is Tatsuya Ishida, Sinfest dude who seems to have spend 24 years or so going from one insane political ideology to the next and is actually someone I now agree with a lot other than the anti-Semitism which almost seems gratuitous.
This isn't even "so bad it's good" territory because the art style is actually strangely appealing and he has a good grasp on composition, paneling, etc. It's just that the actual content is often bizarre and if you didn't know what he's saying you might just think he's insane. Which I think he is, sort of.
- Joined
- May 10, 2019
Most webcomics made now a days are "so relatable quirky queer" comics, Alphabet mafia comics, or shitty Korean romance smut comics on WebToon. I miss the days where you could trip over something like Electric Retard, Hipster Hitler, or the endless Yaoi comics full of violent sex written by people that have never had sex. I miss Hipster Hitler.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
The culture outside of the internet is different, and the internet is different now. There was a lot of more experimentation doing things you couldn't do before just to see if you could do them, and the internet wasn't a hugbox - you read shit to be shocked and offended and owned that, instead of pretending you're so shocked and offended someone should DO SOMETHING.
Also everything is queer and tranny bait now. The fag virus really went epidemic through Webcomics around the late aughts, where virtually every webcomic started introducing some fag-messaging character and also coincided, probably not uncoincidentally, with a lot of comic creators trooning out. Dave Simpson of Ozzy and Milly & Raine Dog fame, the faggot who does Dead Winter, the AGP coomer who does Dresden Codak look longer than I thought to dickflip, and that's just off the top of my head. And the less said about Ghastly the better.
A case that sticks in my mind is some forgettable "College life/unrequited crush romcom" comic that got degraded to my 'when I'm bored' list, came back and when I check on it its been concluded, literal years of the dude's self-insert thirsting for his quirky shy nerd queen ends with a final month of "illustrated text" where there's an extreme 180 as he turns into a massive homotwink.
The other missing piece is Keenspot/Keenspace.
They are/were far from perfect people, and I honestly have no fucking clue how they came to be the ones to rise to the top, but there was no Gold Age of Webcomics without the Keenspot and no Keenspot without the Crosbys.
With no filter for good content, and no proving ground with an "out" to aspire to, you just don't see shit anymore.
Anyway, I guess as a tl;dr Gav of Nukees said it pretty well
"People don’t seek out webcomics anymore. They don’t “surf the web” like they used to. They let social media push entertainment onto them, rather than pull it from the world."
Also everything is queer and tranny bait now. The fag virus really went epidemic through Webcomics around the late aughts, where virtually every webcomic started introducing some fag-messaging character and also coincided, probably not uncoincidentally, with a lot of comic creators trooning out. Dave Simpson of Ozzy and Milly & Raine Dog fame, the faggot who does Dead Winter, the AGP coomer who does Dresden Codak look longer than I thought to dickflip, and that's just off the top of my head. And the less said about Ghastly the better.
A case that sticks in my mind is some forgettable "College life/unrequited crush romcom" comic that got degraded to my 'when I'm bored' list, came back and when I check on it its been concluded, literal years of the dude's self-insert thirsting for his quirky shy nerd queen ends with a final month of "illustrated text" where there's an extreme 180 as he turns into a massive homotwink.
The other missing piece is Keenspot/Keenspace.
They are/were far from perfect people, and I honestly have no fucking clue how they came to be the ones to rise to the top, but there was no Gold Age of Webcomics without the Keenspot and no Keenspot without the Crosbys.
With no filter for good content, and no proving ground with an "out" to aspire to, you just don't see shit anymore.
For the newfags, Keenspot was an invite-only collective of THE top webcomics; from 2000 to about 2008, other than a few names big enough they were doing fine on their own, Keenspot was where you went for the best comics. You had to be invited to join, and joining got you access to Keenspot's Ad Box, which was an immediate ticket to going full time - they paid multiples of what any other ad network would get you per load. Being invited also got you access to their webhosting which was solid with volume discounts and (effectively) fee bandwidth/no caps back when that used to matter plus an early version of a Content Creation Platform to make it easy to just upload a bunch of images and have it autogenerate your archive. Or you could BYOH.
Keenspot also ran Keenspace, which was a free comics hosting platform. You had to run their ads but you could also run your own, and it was zero cost (supported by ads). A couple Keenspace comics got called up to the Big Leagues, but mainly you could go to the "Keen" area of the net and get your big name vetted comics and also go roll the dice on some random flounderface weeb comics.
The wheels started to come off around 2005; ad revenue was still sky high and some of the bigger draws decided to strike out on their own; Partly because they felt they could do better without the middleman, partly becasue Momma Crosby was apparently a battleaxe, one of her sons was a spaztard and the other was... I mean sort of normal but he was drawing a webomic and doing webcomic business so that's on a curve, and there was lots of issues with the Crosby's being sort of controllin. If Bobby or Chris didn't like you for some reason, you would start getting the short shrift. I want to say there was some to-do about Chris's comic getting over promoted, but it was so long ago and I was less tied into the webcomic community at the time so I forget.
Now, I feel it is very important to mention:
No one has ever said they've been stiffed by the Crosbys. For all their issues, they have delivered what was promised - usually giving the other party more favorable consideration. They also never stopped a creator from leaving or asserted any control over IP (except in so much as when they were did merch runs, their right to sell said merch)
Anyway, this came to a head due to... someone who ran a comic, I have never figured out exactly who other than it was implied they were a female, asking on the internal creator forum basically "When do I get my check? I need to pay rent." This triggered a big rabble rousing as I guess a lot of the mid-tier creators had also been getting their checks late, with the bigger draws and a few others saying they never had any issues. This turned into a accusations of favoritism and a general airing of grievances. The Crosbys did not just come and piss in everyone's eye, but they also didn't handle things superwell. This resulted in them tilting their hand that costs had gone up and Ad Revenue was down and while they weren't in trouble there was some cashflow issues due paying some vendors. This just some of the people more up in arms; in the wake of it there was a big split. A group of creators went on to found their own Kool Kids Klub that is now HiveWorks (which has rebranded to be all about faggots; hivemind and all), some were unhappy that business was having issues and they were unaware.
Then the Adpocalypse hit with the Great Recession/Global Credit Crunch/Big short.
Keenspot continued on, but they were sort of tainted; they lost some advertisers because some of the departing people told their sponsors "them or us". They still survive but they are a shell. I don't think they've onboarded any new comics in the past 15 years (at least none that weren't written by a Crosby) and the couple that are still there are almost retired. They are focused on print comics now.
Due to community backlash Keenspace was spun out and I believe sold and is now Comic Genesis, but its not the same.
Keenspot also ran Keenspace, which was a free comics hosting platform. You had to run their ads but you could also run your own, and it was zero cost (supported by ads). A couple Keenspace comics got called up to the Big Leagues, but mainly you could go to the "Keen" area of the net and get your big name vetted comics and also go roll the dice on some random flounderface weeb comics.
The wheels started to come off around 2005; ad revenue was still sky high and some of the bigger draws decided to strike out on their own; Partly because they felt they could do better without the middleman, partly becasue Momma Crosby was apparently a battleaxe, one of her sons was a spaztard and the other was... I mean sort of normal but he was drawing a webomic and doing webcomic business so that's on a curve, and there was lots of issues with the Crosby's being sort of controllin. If Bobby or Chris didn't like you for some reason, you would start getting the short shrift. I want to say there was some to-do about Chris's comic getting over promoted, but it was so long ago and I was less tied into the webcomic community at the time so I forget.
Now, I feel it is very important to mention:
No one has ever said they've been stiffed by the Crosbys. For all their issues, they have delivered what was promised - usually giving the other party more favorable consideration. They also never stopped a creator from leaving or asserted any control over IP (except in so much as when they were did merch runs, their right to sell said merch)
Anyway, this came to a head due to... someone who ran a comic, I have never figured out exactly who other than it was implied they were a female, asking on the internal creator forum basically "When do I get my check? I need to pay rent." This triggered a big rabble rousing as I guess a lot of the mid-tier creators had also been getting their checks late, with the bigger draws and a few others saying they never had any issues. This turned into a accusations of favoritism and a general airing of grievances. The Crosbys did not just come and piss in everyone's eye, but they also didn't handle things superwell. This resulted in them tilting their hand that costs had gone up and Ad Revenue was down and while they weren't in trouble there was some cashflow issues due paying some vendors. This just some of the people more up in arms; in the wake of it there was a big split. A group of creators went on to found their own Kool Kids Klub that is now HiveWorks (which has rebranded to be all about faggots; hivemind and all), some were unhappy that business was having issues and they were unaware.
Then the Adpocalypse hit with the Great Recession/Global Credit Crunch/Big short.
Keenspot continued on, but they were sort of tainted; they lost some advertisers because some of the departing people told their sponsors "them or us". They still survive but they are a shell. I don't think they've onboarded any new comics in the past 15 years (at least none that weren't written by a Crosby) and the couple that are still there are almost retired. They are focused on print comics now.
Due to community backlash Keenspace was spun out and I believe sold and is now Comic Genesis, but its not the same.
Anyway, I guess as a tl;dr Gav of Nukees said it pretty well
"People don’t seek out webcomics anymore. They don’t “surf the web” like they used to. They let social media push entertainment onto them, rather than pull it from the world."
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2021
My guess is because the internet was less restrictive back then. Artists drew whatever they felt like without the fear of offending people, or their comics not getting enough attention.
Nowadays, because algorithms favor consistent and frequent uploads, people rush to get new pages out. And given yaoi shit is popular across many webcomic platforms, people center their comics around that. So you end up with thousands of gay or "relatable" webcomics that try to appeal to everyone and feel less unique as a result.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
I mean offending people was almost the point most of the time. And there no "protected class" bullshit like you see now.
Cave Fisher
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2021
Same reason modern webcomics aren't enjoyable for their goodness, either. Because modern shitty webcomics are generally just slop that's there to push a point or make a quick buck, there aren't a lot of genuinely unhinged webcomic authors nowadays who draw what they draw with such magnetic confidence. There's "bad because it's bad" and "bad because it's soulless" and the former will always be preferable.
The landscape of the internet is too different to allow people to just fuck around and make stuff for fun on a scale that wide anymore, especially when nobody's out there actually looking for said stuff these days, either. Everything is meant to be fast, forgettable, and gratifying, and webcomics either get with the program, or stay obscure, and most of the creative people who want more than one view a year don't bother because you can't actually care about your stuff AND be as fast as the algorithims and users want, it just doesn't work.
In short, why bother drawing, writing, and finding a place to host a passion project that probably won't succeed when you can just make a shitty dime-a-dozen Korean webtoon?
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2023
Just in time for Pipe Up!'s 41st page: The Warren's pronouns!
That edgy weasel? Nonbinary!
That obviously-feminine little bird? Not actually female!
The literal fucking owner of this body and the only existing consciousness in this rabbit's body? Secondary to his trooned-out alter-ego! Also coded pink, because fuck gender norms or something!
That edgy weasel? Nonbinary!
That obviously-feminine little bird? Not actually female!
The literal fucking owner of this body and the only existing consciousness in this rabbit's body? Secondary to his trooned-out alter-ego! Also coded pink, because fuck gender norms or something!
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- Joined
- May 10, 2019
Is that symbol beside the content flag a penis? Isn't this a comic about a minor? I'm not even surprised anymore.
Jerkass Ingoff Y2K2.0
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2023
I think it's supposed to be an L, for language.
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2023
It's an L for language. I don't know how you saw a penis out of that.
- Joined
- May 10, 2019
My excuse will be I'm old and need new glasses.