Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Comic strips and heavy topics

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TRVA123:

--- Quote from: Akima on 01 Jun 2015, 15:23 ---My own view is that it is more respectful to serious issues, and to readers who have experience of them, not to treat them as one-off "special episodes" but to show that they are often lifetime struggles.

--- End quote ---

Yes.

This is also an issue that Jeph has struggled with personally.

ReindeerFlotilla:
Why does anyone post anything?

I think you can boil that down to 4 reasons:

They feel a need to prove something.
They are looking to find like minds.
Attention seeking.
They think they have something to contribute.

Ragequits are almost always one of the middle 2.

QC has rapidly gone from a comic I was looking forward to, 5 days out of the week to "Meh." It's not reached the level of Misfile, which I realized I was only reading because It was linked from my home page. (So I removed the link.)

While I feel the OP's pain, I disagree with the thesis. This is far from the first very special episode Jeph has done. The difference is purely pacing. Proof, I guess, that all pictures aren't worth a 1000 words. It just takes longer to tell the same story.

Still, I do understand. Sometimes, "I'm thinking of quitting this (noun)" is just a throwaway line. A shorthand for how a person feels.

Whatevs. I agree, to an extent, with the OP. This storyline has gone past its sell by date. At least to the extent that is pretty much the dominant theme of QC now. That said, I don't think it would make sense any other way. Having it end with "Faye has a crisis. Faye is magically able to defeat her demons," would ring pretty hollow. This had to happen. While I may be less than thrilled with it coming back so soon, I think I'd have definitely dropped QC if it hadn't come back. I've known too many alcoholics to believe in sudden change and I'd feel that Jeph was handling the subject poorly.

As for the pacing, it's Jeph's comic to pace as Jeph likes and pacing is a lot harder than you think.

jwhouk:
My comment would just be, "If you think you can do better, you put out a comic that reaches nearly 3k strips."

Right now, in webcomic circles, that number is incredibly small. In fact, I'd suggest the number wouldn't be hard to count.

Gladstone:
(Re-posting from the WCDT, since this thread felt more appropriate)

I understand and share some of the frustration here--I've been slowly losing interest in the comic (to the point that it's now only my second favorite, after Dumbing of Age), and have started scaling back to reading it once a week, instead of waiting for the daily updates.  After the multiple derailments of the past few weeks that were Momo's and Hannelore's stories, though, it was kinda nice to get back on track, even with a "Very Special Episode"...

...unfortunately, Jeph kinda killed the moment for me:



Yeah, I know, Jeph has wrestled with his own addiction demons in the past and finally feels confident enough to address those issues in the comic, but that "mocking laughter" tweet makes Monday's comic feel like cheap drama.  "Oh, sure, I could address any one of the dangling subplots in the comic, like Claire's future at the library, Marten's lack of momentum, Sven's relationship with his sister and/or Faye, Dora's own issues and relationships, heck, even Faye's attempts to get back on her feet after being fired and hospitalized, but nah, I'm just gonna get her drunk again for lulz."

I dunno, maybe it's just me and a reflection of how I feel about the comic lately.  And at the risk of adding to the drama, maybe it's time for another ragequit break...

ReindeerFlotilla:

--- Quote from: jwhouk on 01 Jun 2015, 18:12 ---My comment would just be, "If you think you can do better, you put out a comic that reaches nearly 3k strips."

Right now, in webcomic circles, that number is incredibly small. In fact, I'd suggest the number wouldn't be hard to count.

--- End quote ---

Why does one have to think they can do better to be a critic? I'm pretty sure Roger Ebert never made a film and he was paid to be critical of them.

It seems to me that if one is required to match Jeph's output before expressing a criticism, the inverse is true. One should have to  match his output before expressing praise.

Try making a comic that reaches 30 strips, without missing an update or using filler. It's hard. But ultimately you're putting it out there to get opinions on it. You hope those opinions will be "I like this." but they might be something else. In fact, it seems overwhelming likely that they will be something else. Then you start wondering why you even bother with it.

Trying to make a comic doesn't give you any magically superior perspective. It just makes you wonder if you're being fair. Or, if you have GAD, if you're being fair about being fair. Reading for pleasure is necessarily irrational. It's all about how a media makes you feel. If you have to master that medium before your feelings are valid, then you can't dislike anything until you can do it better.

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