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Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: Skittish on 16 Sep 2008, 11:27

Title: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Skittish on 16 Sep 2008, 11:27
bigs
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: pwhodges on 16 Sep 2008, 11:34
QC hasn't relied on the indie rock theme for a long time, though it still pops up.  And yes, plenty of us enjoy it.  As for why - does it matter?  You will either enjoy it or not for yourself.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: benji on 16 Sep 2008, 11:59
Personally, I read mostly for the story these days. I like the characters and there lives continue to interest me. Slice of life comics regularly operate on the premise that, once you get to know the characters, you'll genuinely be interested in knowing what happens to them. In the early days, I think the strip tended to be funnier, but now I read it primarily because I'm interested in what happens to the characters next.

I really don't think it relies on indie rock much at all anymore. Jeph rarely mentions real bands these days. The characters are still interested in music, and part of the indie rock crowd, and that probably is still part of the appeal for some people to. We tend to like stories that have characters who are somehow "like us." It's the same reason that young children really like it when grownups rename the character of a story with the same name the child has. So for those of us that are a part of the indie rock/music geek crowd, it is enjoyable to read about characters who seem in some ways like us or the people we know.

And I do like the art. There's certainly better comic art to be found, but but I think Jeph's current style is pretty good: not overly simplified, and not absurdly detailed. It serves the comic that he's doing well. The characters are distinct and pleasant to look at. I'm not going to remember "that one panel" with Jeph's art the way I might with, say, Craig Thompson, but the art is functional and serves its purpose well
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Surgoshan on 16 Sep 2008, 16:14
Jeph claims to hate puns, but he throws so many in there... Either he's a masochist or a closeted pun-dit.  The funny isn't always uproarious nor all the time, but it's there.  Also, the story's just plain good, every single day (business day, I should say).  It's a romantic comedy, occasionaly lolrific.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Zingoleb on 16 Sep 2008, 20:50
To me, Jeph only gets better and better. His art inspires me; I could have drawn those earlier strips, but not these later ones.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: durao on 18 Sep 2008, 03:26
Jeph claims to hate puns, but he throws so many in there...

Until the moment I could not decipher the meaning of the word PUNS
Will someone (finally) tell me what it means?
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: skylinetrain on 18 Sep 2008, 05:59
Dictionary.com Unabridged
pun     /pʌn/ [puhn]  noun,
verb, punned, pun·ning.
–noun
1.   the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.

2.   the word or phrase used in this way

–verb (used without object)
3.   to make puns.

[Origin: 1655–65; perh. special use of pun, var. (now dial.) of pound1, i.e., to mistreat (words)]

It is both startling and interesting that the linguistic pronunciation key of "pun" looks quite like "pwn." A connection? I think yes.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: gardenhead_ on 18 Sep 2008, 07:00
except that 'pwn' came from the mispelling of 'own', which only shares the letter 'n' with 'pun'. I'm not seeing the connection.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: bbqrocks on 18 Sep 2008, 15:32
Quote
It is both startling and interesting that the linguistic pronunciation key of "pun" looks quite like "pwn." A connection? I think yes.

No, there really, really, isn't. 'own' and 'pun' have nothing in particular, and 'pwn' (meaning) has nothing to do with 'pun' (meaning).
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 18 Sep 2008, 16:51
For me, it's partly the characters and partly the occasional brilliant dialog and humor. Things like #616 are harder to write than they look, #787 combines a gentle warmth with a certain amount of cuckooness, and every now and then Jeph will take something that is funny to begin with and add a twist.

For example, 1094 has Penne-lope asking Dora to delay Faye's execution long enough for her to make popcorn. That's funny. But in the last panel of 1095 she's in the background silently eating popcorn. That's genius. Jeph succeeded with the same maneuver in 1089/1090, where you have to be looking at Dr. Buenvenida's corkboard to notice that she really did need to go ahead with the colored string.

It's highly quotable.

The characters mostly feel like real people.

That's just me.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Touch Me Im Sick on 18 Sep 2008, 17:28
How jokes end up being continued like above poster said.

Easily quotable jokes.

The indie theme.

Art is gewd.



That's it for me.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Minineko on 18 Sep 2008, 19:22
Cold, you forgot to mention the GREATEST example of that "manoever" in #1220,1221.

The COOKIES o.o
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: MillionDollar Belt Sander on 18 Sep 2008, 19:28
I am totally obsessed with Faye and her tits.   I have an enormous shrine in the basement dedicated to her.   Also a smaller one outside in the shed for Raven but the main one is downstairs, dedicated to Faye. 















Also I'm originally from Mass Of Chew Shits, and Jeph has in a nutshell managed to recreate my misspent university/post-university years.  Replace the indy-music stuff with Star Trek stuff and you have about three years of my life there... hanging around with a bunch of cool chicks in a small cafe in the middle of southern East Northingfurd.  (Lowel actually)


Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 18 Sep 2008, 21:42
*facepalm*

How could I have left out the cookies?
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Jeff7 on 18 Sep 2008, 22:49
I believe the best way to put it is, "OMG TEH SEXINESS!!!!"

Something along those lines.

Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Flying Sagittarius on 18 Sep 2008, 23:04
The humor is great.  It's usually not crude, and I could imagine me pulling some of the punch lines.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: CrazySoprano on 21 Sep 2008, 22:27
I've been reading the comic for almost three years now.  I've tried to get into other comics that Jeph suggests, and I do read http://www.agirlandherfed.com/ (http://www.agirlandherfed.com/) regularly, but no comic has had quite the same appeal for me that QC has.

It's not the indie rock thing, because I'm an opera singer and rarely listen to anything but classical music.  Some of the time, I have no idea what the joke is about, but I enjoy the comic anyway.  Although there is more elegant art out there, I like the clean simplicity of Jeph's art.  It's always clear who's talking and what they're doing and I always know who a character is, even if they're wearing a different outfit or they changed their hairstyle, and that's more important to me than pretty pictures.  I've also enjoyed watching the art evolve over the years.  Mostly, I like the characters because they're so real.  I feel like these are people who could conceivably exist in real life, though I wish I could afford such an awesome apartment as Marten and Faye have, especially given that they probably make minimum wage.  There's just enough suspension of disbelief (AnthroPC's, Vespavenger, etc.) to make it an interesting world, but the people in the comic are real people with real problems and believable personalities.  They're my age, struggling to figure out who they are and what they want, just like me and everyone else I know.

From the comic, newsposts, and my recent exploration of the forum, I get the impression that Jeph is a down-to-earth guy who isn't trying to be something he's not, and he writes his characters the same way.  I appreciate the honesty of that.

This went on longer than I had planned...I hope I got my ideas across to anyone who happens to read my post!
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Spluff on 22 Sep 2008, 21:23
It's free.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Jeff7 on 22 Sep 2008, 21:58
Given today's comic, I shall reiterate my previous statement:

Quote
"OMG TEH SEXINESS!!!!"

And "teh boobies."

Yeah, yeah. Cartoons. And a digital picture is just a bunch of pixels.

Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: edgreenberg on 23 Sep 2008, 09:34
For me QC is everything BUT the Indie Rock. I have to Google to get the Indie Rock references.  On the other hand, Jeph's sense of humor, his characters, his story line and his art have made QC a daily read for me.

Yesterday, I visited a local coffee shop full of pretty female employees. I could hardly keep from bursting out laughing. 
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Orangina on 23 Sep 2008, 10:40
I'll be completely honest here... I read QC because I've been reading it too long to stop at this point. I click over every day, I spend about 15 seconds reading it, and I'm done. The art's damn fine, but the humor is usually an unimpressive kind of forced witticism or trite anti-prudishness, and the band jokes are beneath obvious if you pay any attention to minor-label/major-label altrock doings. At its heart it's a relationship strip, and I keep up with it like some would a television show dispiritedly limping into its sixth season. Once in a while there'll be an interesting shift, like the recent Faye/Sven mini-arc, and that's pretty much all that keeps me hanging around. I don't pretend I'm part of some silent majority or anything, but all this "indie" and "boobage" stuff seems like a red herring to me...
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: angulique on 23 Sep 2008, 11:25
I can't remember how I found QC, but I remember seeing an avatar or something online (probably on LJ) and looked it up.  I saw the panel that was up, but didn't read it and went to the first one (I'm a bit anal about starting at the beginning of a comic) and began reading.  I'm not a part of the indie-rock scene, and not familiar with many of the bands, but I like the comic because it's cute, quirky and funny, the characters are really neat and multi-dimensional, and they seem so real, but yet not (does that make sense?).  They have become a part of my life and QC is the first webcomic I became a faithful reader/follower of.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Rocketman on 23 Sep 2008, 12:26
It's free.

This. I like the characters (as characters; as people nearly the whole lot pisses me off), but I don't get any indie references and I don't like a lot of the recent turns, and even the banter's gotten weak lately. But, if nothing else, it's free, so I'll keep reading.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Inert on 27 Sep 2008, 22:41
Agreed on the freeness, I'm semi like you, I don't like the comic at many parts and miss a lot of the early humor, but every now something really funny pops up, and thats what I read for.

Also its a great thing to look forward to doing, at least I always know that their will most likely be a comic when I get home.

But if you really hate it so much, you should probably just keep trying to make yourself not read it. I had a problem with powerup comics similar to this (by the way powerup comics is the worst comic to ever exist in the history of ever.) I just deleted the bookmark and slapped myself whenever I had the urge to go.
Title: Re: What is the appeal of this comic?
Post by: Kaeldra1 on 28 Sep 2008, 18:06
um...cuz its awesome?


I think it needs more pintsize though.  That's in part why the earlier comics were so much more fun, because of pintsize....