As being someone who posts regularly in the threads of Vivziepop's shows and herself, I decided to actually sit down and read Zoophobia itself. Because while I do have knowledge of the webcomic, has seen some of the pages, character sheets, sketches, and all sorts of stuff in regards to this project, I have actually never read the thing. So I did.
And wow.
Like I knew the thing wasn't so great, but I didn't realize how bad and most of are boring it actually was.
For starters, I didn't realize how short the thing actually was. With how many characters and storylines were discussed, I thought at the very least there was a thousand pages. But there's only a little over 300 pages at 4 1/2 chapters. So I think what most fans like about in this series doesn't actually appear in the story itself. And that story...
Let me give some positives first real quick. It's nice that one of Vivziepop's project isn't filled with constant swearing, sex, and gore. Yeah, there's a few instances of those things; but it's not to the extent of Hazbin or Helluva. The art itself is pretty decent, you got some interesting character designs, and the backgrounds can be really beautiful at times; I can see why people would have gotten drawn to this comic in the first place. But once you get passed the initial eye-candy, the writing and story itself is a boring, convoluted mess.
The first chapter is okay; it introduces our audience surrogate and the world we're about to get into. It's well enough introduction to a story. But after that, everything just goes downhill. I think the idea is that each chapter has a different character we focus on? Like Cameron is supposed to be our POV to this wacky world, but she's really not the main character. It felt like each chapter has a character that we follow with their plotline, and it all is supposed to connect into one overarching story. I don't know if that was actually the intention or if Vivziepop got bored with her initial idea (which I do believe to be the latter and I will explain later). But it doesn't really work, because a lot of the times it's just a bunch if different events that happen in succession of each other with really no rhyme or reason. And it doesn't help that you'll get large lore or character dumps interrupting the flow of said events. Oh god; don't even me started on these walls of texts. They're sprinkled throughout the comic, but get really bad in chapter 3. And chapter 4 is just the chapter of this because it's just a therapy session. Sometimes, you might get a nice visual to go with said text blurb, but a lot of the times it's just a character standing there and talking. And the worst part is, the dialogue itself is usually not very good or interesting, so your eyes slowly glaze over as you wait for something to happen. It's boring.
And you know, I think that's why Zoophobia ended the way that it did. Vivziepop got bored with it. It's why each chapter feels so different from each other. Vivziepop started with a story of a human girl with zoophobia getting stuck in a world that is full of strange creatures. But that got boring real quick. What about those group of students of Jackie's that were introduced to? They seem like fun; plus one of them is the anti-christ. So, write about them for a bit. But now, Vivziepop is really into this one gay twink she made, and her and her friend have been drawing porn of Vivziepop's and the friend's characters together, so let's write a chapter on those two so they can get into a relationship. And then there's all these other characters that she's been drawing and writing for that haven't even appeared in the comic itself yet. Like JayJay, who's going to make her appearance in book 2. Or the demons and angels from the "Demons and Angels arc". That's going to happen way later though. Well actually, Vivziepop pretty much abandoned Zoophobia, so she could start working on a project focusing solely on them. And Hazbin Hotel was born...
And that's really one of the main issues of Vivziepop's works in general. She gets really excited about future characters and plotlines she has in her head. But she doesn't want to spend the time in building up to these characters or plotlines. So she just writes them out when she feels like it. It's a fun spur in the moment kind of deal, that is okay when that is the only thing. But it's unfulfilling when you look at the full picture. You can see that what you look at the two seasons for Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel, and the second season feeling drastically different from the first (moreso with Helluva). Not to mention when you remember these two shows are coinciding with each other, the worldbuiliding really starts to fall apart. The only reason why I can say Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are marginally better written stories, is because Vivziepop has others helping her. If she was the sole writer, I feel like Hazbin and Helluva would be just as bad as Zoophobia, even worse. And be unfinished. But it doesn't really matter if Vivziepop does become bored with her hell shows; she under contract now to finish them.
One more slight positive for Zoophobia; when hair is over eye/s, it is drawn over said eye/s.
Yeah, people know that I'm a nitpicker when it comes to this in Hazbin and Helluva. So...guess that's one point Zoophobia has over them.
But she doesn't want to spend the time in building up to these characters or plotlines. So she just writes them out when she feels like it. It's a fun spur in the moment kind of deal, that is okay when that is the only thing.
Did u pick up how almost every character has a parallel to Hazbin/Helluva? She’s been recycling the same 10 character tropes since HS. Not that it’s exclusive to Viv. People like to write traits into characters they want for the story, but neglect why they act that way to begin with all the time.
Welcome to the last real website on the Internet. 
