THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: Aziraphale on 28 Oct 2014, 16:18
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I've been reading QC for a little more than a year now, after the first of many archive binges. The funny thing is, I'd come across the strip a few times before then, and for some reason I'd read the first five strips or so, but it never quite clicked. Well, I was bored one night, so I figured I'd read 100 strips and either be bored out of my skull or end up liking it, but I would've at least given it a fair shot.
So that brings me, in a roundabout sorta way, to a question: who else had a few false starts with the strip? Or am I in the minority in taking a few tries to get hooked?
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Dunno if you're the minority, but I had the good fortune to find the strip during an interesting time - I think it was toward the end of Marten and Dora's relationship. The comic that hooked me was this (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1323) one, and I still grin every time I see the last panel.
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I don't remember exactly where I came in, but I'm in the habit of starting from the beginning, 'cause I figure things will make a lot more sense later on that might not otherwise.
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I don't know when I read it the first time, but like you I liked it but didn't stick around long due to what ever reason. I know years ago I was working such long hours I'd get home from work, take a shower, and crash and burn. On my days off I'd have to spend time with my at the time girl friend-who became my wife that I never had the energy. a couple of years ago while still married I ran across this strip again, I think I was looking for something to read and say the link on xkcd and it seemed familiar.
I've also re-read the archive several times (just this year alone). when Claire came out as trans my brother did the week before to me. I've spent so much of the past couple of years reading and re-reading this comic but it did have a false start of two for me too. It's weird to think about not caring about it at first with as much as I read it now you know?
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I don't know when I read it the first time, but like you I liked it but didn't stick around long due to what ever reason. I know years ago I was working such long hours I'd get home from work, take a shower, and crash and burn. On my days off I'd have to spend time with my at the time girl friend-who became my wife that I never had the energy. a couple of years ago while still married I ran across this strip again, I think I was looking for something to read and say the link on xkcd and it seemed familiar.
I've also re-read the archive several times (just this year alone). when Claire came out as trans my brother did the week before to me. I've spent so much of the past couple of years reading and re-reading this comic but it did have a false start of two for me too. It's weird to think about not caring about it at first with as much as I read it now you know?
Thanks for clearing something up for me, by the way. I couldn't figure out how I found QC in the first place, and realized that it was probably XKCD. That and PBF were the only webcomics I read regularly for the longest time.
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Can't speak for others of course but I started when Marigold tried to kiss Angus, did an archive binge and got hooked right away.
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I got here from xkcd, as some other have. And I distinctly remember that the first thing I saw was comic 2110 (F*ck yeah lens flare) and, probably posessed by the spirit of JJ Abrams, I binged the archive just to see what brought on that lens flare. So no false starts for me. Obviously, after 2115 strips you're already pretty much addicted to the story.
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I was directed here from XKCD back in 2009. First strip I saw was #1500 (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1500), and I was hooked from that. Read a couple of strips back from it, then went back to the start and archive-binged over the next day.
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I can't say I did. I picked up QC at the double date.
Somewhere around 200. (insert Hipsterism)
My first impression of Dora was as a take charge, sly, yet honorable business owner who doesn't take any crap. And terribly adorable. I pretty much started reading the comic for her. I had to make some hard adjustments when it became clear that Dora wasn't quite the badass she'd have one believe. I was fairly pissed about the breakup, because it was all her fault. Marten didn't pull a jerk move until after it fell down ("It was mutual. We're both tired of her shit." The ultimate in passive aggression).
I probably read the strip for a couple of weeks before I decided to actually see what the hell was going on by reading the archives. That didn't take long at all.
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Not sure how I got, there, but I first stumbled across QC just after Raven was hired at Cod and was judged odd for being friendly and helpful toward the customers. "A Friends storyline at a coffee shop," said I to myself, and forgot about it. Much later, again I don't remember from where but probably following a link from Girls with Slingshots, I stumbled across Faye's post-Angus-date anxiety attack. Not realizing the Velma-looking gal and the skinny guy were apartment-mates and not neighbors, I wondered why Velma-Logue was in the hallway in her underpants. At some point I started toggling back and forth in the archives (again, can't remember the intervening connection) and got hooked ... probably after reading the Faye-Angus First Date conversation, as it resonated with something (not) going on in my life at the time. Was mildly surprised to realize it was all the same strip.
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I find it interesting that the samples that have been given are ones that really make no sense to me unless you know the characters (huge thumbs? A sword in a coffee shop?) I don't really remember where/when I started, but it has been a while (registered for the forum in March 2012, had been reading for a while before that, probably lured over from David Willis-land. Read a few, got hooked, and went on the inevitable archive binge.
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I find it interesting that the samples that have been given are ones that really make no sense to me unless you know the characters (huge thumbs? A sword in a coffee shop?)
I think that was part of it for me, too. I'd come in on a guest strip, or something that needed more context, go to the beginning, and stall out. It wasn't until I got past that first handful of strips that things started to gel for me.
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the inside jokes are inside jokes, jokes within jokes within jokes? the puns must flow?
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Can't speak for others of course but I started when Marigold tried to kiss Angus, did an archive binge and got hooked right away.
Similar situation with me. I discovered the strip via TV Tropes; I can't remember which strip I read first, and which trope it was listed as an example of, but I checked it out, read a few more strips, then binged the archive and subsequently became a fan.
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I followed a link to QC from John Allison's ScaryGoRound. That must have been around #74, as Jeph mentions the link there. It was pretty easy to binge the archives then, and I've been a faithful reader ever since.
I registered to this forum in June 2004, but as you can tell from my post count haven't had a lot to say in the forums.
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Think I followed a link off XKCD, my first strip was the Flying Roomba
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I read a few strips here and there before 2323 turned me into a regular reader. I tried reading from #1 and just could not handle the early strips - the terrible art, overwritten dialogue, Faye's casual violence. I made it to about #400 before giving up, and didn't read the rest of the archives until I started my timeline project, in two big bursts (1800-2300 and then 1300-1800). There are still substantial chunks of the archives that I have yet to tackle.
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I remember the first strip I read was #984 years ago. Binged the archive and was hooked. Didn't forum up for years though.
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I came here after reading a few strips on Google Reader (sorely missed, I've moved to feedly but it's lacking a few things from GR, including the ability to find new feeds). The first was the field trip with Padme & Marten, which I thought was so-so because I didn't know the backstory, tried to go back through the archives, read the Momo gets a new body arc, liked it, moved more back, to the Dora&Jim date, which was thoroughly confusing when read in the wrong order, decided to do an archive binge (which took 3 days) and here I am, some 3+ years later.
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I followed a link to QC from a totally different strip with a totally different theme. I don't recall the first strip I saw (it was about 2 years back). However, it interested me enough that I went back to the first and read it from there.
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I started reading QC very early, and liked it pretty much right away. If I remember correctly, it was during a time when I was desperate for new, good webcomics to read, so that might have had an influence.
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Pretty sure I signed up here not long after I first started reading, so we're talking close to a decade.
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I actually cannot remember when i started reading and it has been driving me crazy, i just remember a Dune reference around the chunk of strips was what got me
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I can't pinpoint exactly where I started reading, but it was definitely before #100. It feels weird not to remember, for some reason.
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If I were to pinpoint one exact cause that got me (beause the reason I archive binged was more to kill time and I had fun doing it), it's that Faye is pretty much my sister with added traumas.
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I actually cannot remember when i started reading and it has been driving me crazy, i just remember a Dune reference around the chunk of strips was what got me
So anywhere from about #1 to #2823 then? :D
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I can't remember when exactly I started reading or why. It was sometime before the Vespa Avenger story, so really early on. The AI storylines I think were what really kept me coming back at first. It was Claire's coming out to Marten that started me reading the forums, and the wonderful reactions to it that made me decide to join in here. Where I have been stuck ever since. :)
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I started reading about the time Marten got the job at the library. I got here from "Unshelved", who made a comment about it.
Went through the archives pretty quickly after that.
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I started reading QC in high school, around strip 200, archive binged, and read it for a couple months. I liked the indie rock references but the characterization was a little bland, so eventually I stopped reading.
Fast forward the better part of a decade and I started reading from the time Henry and Maurice came to visit and got engaged (I got here through TV Tropes of all places) and read all the way through to the then-current comic (the first page of the original May arc). After that, I decided to archive binge the first half of the comic that I had skipped and about 20 strips in I was like, "Wait, I've read this. This is THAT comic? That girl is supposed to be Faye? WTF?" It's really like a different comic at the beginning.
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I actually joined on my Birthday in 2006, (May 9th) but can't remember offhand what Comic was up that day. I had actually begun reading the Comic around six to eight months beforehand.
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I can't remember the exact strip I came in, but I do believe it was just a little after "the talk". Then my obsessive nature kicked in and I HAD to read from the begining, so never really had a false start. Even if I had not liked it Iwould have continued cause that's just how I roll. but I did so no worries :P
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This is where I came in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW2tGPvsR2E).
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This is where I came in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW2tGPvsR2E).
This video is not available in your country.
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This is not as good, but almost the same (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMi8jSfn1mw)
As for me, I've seen the story. I've read it over once or twice.
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Not sure exactly when I started anymore. I'd been linked to it by someone I knew through a cousin of mine. At the time, I read through it in one go and I think it was around the start of the Marten-Dora relationship? Maybe?
I dunno. It's just been a while.
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I was first pointed to QC back when it was a tri-weekly with the same art as the first strip, but the small archive and (at the time) unengaging plot put me off until someone pointed me at The Talk which had just happened (the current strip was still in the mid-500's) and that got me.
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I'm another XKCD referral, but it took a few tries. I'd follow the link, and insist on starting at the beginning each time, and then would recognize it, and was put off by the indie references I didn't know, so I never got past the first 20 or so strips - about four ot five times, with enough time in between to forget that I'd tried it already.
So I tried again one afternoon, and saw the exultation of the beer sledding (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1387).
I went backwards from there, probably a few hundred strips or so, then went to the beginning and worked forward (and had the "WTF? That comic?" experience), reading both ways until they met up.
At the talk.
It was weird.
Than I found the forum, and it was weirder!
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So this'll probably sound pretty stupid, but...
I was linked here from XKCD, like a lot of you. The first couple times I started reading QC, I never got interested in it. My dad died in 2011, and shortly afterward, I clicked on the link from XKCD again. It was during the storyline where Momo gets her new chassis. For some reason I clicked "Random", and it went to Faye talking to her therapist about her father's death. That resonated with me at the time and I ended up reading the whole comic. Then later I joined the forum and then it's now.
Incidentally, the idea of starting a comic of my own was partially inspired by seeing the improvement in QC between the beginning and the present. The thought was, hey, if practice can improve someone that much, I can give it a shot as well.
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First QC I saw was one where Hanners was serving coffee and didn't realise that the customer was flirting with her. Read several of the following comics, liked them and decided to start from the beginning.
That was like getting punched in the retinas, (Jeph's drawing skills have come a loooooong way).
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The thought was, hey, if practice can improve someone that much, I can give it a shot as well.
10,000 hours!
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i first came to QC via a link from Girls with Slingshots -- the Wrong your (http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-849) strip which was used to illustrate an article about grammar. It was at the start of the space station arc in January 2012. Then I read the archives twice, mostly at work (very boring job at the time) until my boss caught me.
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First comic I read was this one :
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1201
An acquaintance linked it with the comment 'Women, right? No matter WHAT you say...' Which was more or less an answer to a previous discussion, but I read the comic out of curiosity (and boredom... oh god, those classes were boring), but I got hooked pretty fast ;)
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I came in during the introduction of Cosette (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1322). I'd heard about the Theory of Hipster Relativity (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=126), but hadn't really invested my time in the comic until the whole Cosette arc.
I binged to bring me up to speed, and was impressed both by the great improvement in Jeph's artistry and the storyline. And then I found these forums.
The rest, as they say, is history. :clairedoge:
EDIT - In case you couldn't read the equation:
M = (BN2)-1
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I have no idea what the first comic read was but it was in the last year or so. I found out about QC from dailyfail of all places and I binged and read the entire archive in a couple of days and now I check for updates even when I know there won't be one because my obsession with this world has become consuming.
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This actually happened to me- I picked up a link while reading Something Positive's Archives, and managed to hit the strip where Dora punches Faye for "stringing Marten along" (pretty much RIGHT AFTER "The Talk"). I loved the art and the way the characters interacted, and promised to keep reading... then of course forgot the name of the strip.
It was ANOTHER Archive Crawl through S*P later before I hit that exact same link, and endeavored to do a real Archive Crawl on QC. This was probably around Strip 700-800 or so, so I think I only missed a year. But it was funny seeing the link and going "OMG THERE'S THAT ART STYLE!!"
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I can't remember when I actually started reading the Comic, but I do remember it was a bout a year before I finally joined the Forum in '06 (on my birthday of all things). I think I came here via a link in one of the other comics I was reading at the time, either The Lounge or Alpha Shade if memory serves.
It took me about a week to go through them all at that time, and I was hooked,
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The first week or so after my first archive binge was brutal. It's tough to switch gears between reading something in large chunks like that and then having to wait for it to update once a day (actually, longer at first 'cause I finished binge-ing on a Thursday night).
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Oh yeah. It happens with every comic I read (many of which were linked off of the QC page). I don't really bother for non-sequential comics, but for the sequential ones, I have to go through the archives, and it gets painful to wait, especially when there's a break, for a new one. I usually only read AG every couple of weeks or so, just because of the slow update cycle.
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Yeah, I recently ran into that same problem with Dumbing of Age. Zoomed through the archives in a week, realized my mistake, read through it again, and finally resigned myself to waiting for daily updates like everyone else. Didn't realize how glacial the pace was when I was reading a chapter at a time, but it's nice that it is organized into chapters, so I can revisit a favorite storyline when I want to.
I bookmarked Girls With Slingshots recently, and was planning to archive-binge that next...but it looks like I won't have the same problem when I catch up this time.
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The first week or so after my first archive binge was brutal. It's tough to switch gears between reading something in large chunks like that and then having to wait for it to update once a day (actually, longer at first 'cause I finished binge-ing on a Thursday night).
Oh man, tell me about it. I Archive-Binged Achewood for MONTHS right at the same time when Onstadt stopped updating it regularly. Went from 20-30 giant, fascinating strips per day to nothing for MONTHS, and then he did a weak stop & start thing and then stopped AGAIN.
I've always meant to read Girls With Slingshots- now that it's ending, it might be the time.
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I was thinking the same thing about GWS. At that point, it's like reading a book. You know when you've come to the end and can just put it down when you're done. I binged "Woody After Hours" a couple of weeks back and it's ending in a few weeks. Binged Orneryboy (which I think was the first story-based webcomic I really got into) a couple years back and that went belly-up soon after.
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I've always meant to read Girls With Slingshots- now that it's ending, it might be the time.
This is the time. You can even get something close the original experience, seeing as Danielle is uploading color versions of her archive on a M-F schedule.
I found QC back in 2011-2012, somewhere in that time frame, coming from XKCD. No clue what that first strip was, because I pretty much immediately clicked 'first' and read from the beginning.
My experience with GWS was like what you described for QC, though. I'd click the link on the QC homepage when I felt bored; maybe I'd chuckle, but I never got the urge to really go back to the start. Now I have, and now, of course, she's putting up the old strips with new, exciting technicolor. Still worth checking out, in my opinion, archive binges often leave gaps in memory, and there's always the newsposts to read
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I got to QC through an XKCD link. I think my first strip was http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1342 (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1342) .
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My roommate kept trying to get me to read it. I was iffy at first because my sister also read it. Pintsize and several Dune references were enough to get me hooked! On a side note, my sister is my best friend. This strip (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1486) describes a number of conversations we've had over the years. Its great.
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Now that I think about it, I didn't really have a defining "this has caught me moment." I started reading back in about 2008 when I was in grad school - one of my roommates at the time recommended it to me but I never really got around to reading it until one day when I was procrastinating on working on my thesis. I was aimlessly surfing, saw a link to it, remembered that Tim said it was pretty good, and started reading it from the beginning. It didn't really catch me, I was just clicking from strip to strip with about as much enthusiasm as I'd have for my fiftieth game of minesweeper and at some point I realized I was actually interested in the storyline and wasn't procrastinating anymore (or at least, not *just* procrastinating). A six pack of craft beer, an archive binge, and a sleepless night later, and it's been on my daily reading list ever since.
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I didn't have any false starts with the strip personally. I started reading it about...3 weeks ago I think? Maybe 4? Nah, probably 3, and caught up with the current strip about 5 days ago. I found myself enjoying it quite a bit actually, though I am glad he's moved away from the constant indie band references, as they were mostly lost on me. I'm a huge music fan, but obviously, based on the QC namedrops, not the same bands as Jeph. :laugh: So most of the jokes about those bands were simply lost on me. Once the strip became more "soap opera-y" (focused mostly on the romantic relationships of the characters), I found the jokes far more enjoyable and relatable.
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My first strip was sometime between strip 300-400, back when I was in school.
(Had to do something during the basic 'everyone have to take this no ands, ifs or buts' computer class)
I think it was the strip when Pintsize had been on a date ... Possibly ... Or somewhere around there.
And I know where I came from, Gaia Online :-P
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I didn't have any false starts with the strip personally. I started reading it about...3 weeks ago I think? Maybe 4? Nah, probably 3, and caught up with the current strip about 5 days ago. I found myself enjoying it quite a bit actually, though I am glad he's moved away from the constant indie band references, as they were mostly lost on me. I'm a huge music fan, but obviously, based on the QC namedrops, not the same bands as Jeph. :laugh: So most of the jokes about those bands were simply lost on me. Once the strip became more "soap opera-y" (focused mostly on the romantic relationships of the characters), I found the jokes far more enjoyable and relatable.
Agreed. I'm a big music fan too (including some of the bands Jeph used to reference from time to time), but those jokes and references always seemed kinda like speedbumps to me. The relationships and the human element are what makes it for me, and I think the strip got stronger the more it came to emphasize that side of things.
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I didn't have any false starts with the strip personally. I started reading it about...3 weeks ago I think? Maybe 4? Nah, probably 3, and caught up with the current strip about 5 days ago. I found myself enjoying it quite a bit actually, though I am glad he's moved away from the constant indie band references, as they were mostly lost on me. I'm a huge music fan, but obviously, based on the QC namedrops, not the same bands as Jeph. :laugh: So most of the jokes about those bands were simply lost on me. Once the strip became more "soap opera-y" (focused mostly on the romantic relationships of the characters), I found the jokes far more enjoyable and relatable.
Agreed. I'm a big music fan too (including some of the bands Jeph used to reference from time to time), but those jokes and references always seemed kinda like speedbumps to me. The relationships and the human element are what makes it for me, and I think the strip got stronger the more it came to emphasize that side of things.
Yeah, I think the only band he ever name-dropped that I actually knew and liked was Hum. Most of the others I vaguely knew from second/third hand sources, or just simply didn't know at all.
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I'd started fine, somewhere around 1500 or so. And while I was reading day to day just fine it did take me quite a few tries to go through the archives. I Noped whenever I'd try and start and saw the art on the first strip.
Eventually managed and enjoyed it, though you can also put me down for not getting indie references and just skimming over them. I don't think he was wrong to have them, since that was his audience at the time, but probably doesn't work for most if the current audience.
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Welcome, new person!
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I think I was linked to the comic by an acquaintance who thought a particular strip was relevant to a discussion we were having, and it was all downhill from there. An archive binge ensued, and the rest was history.
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I too was linked by a webcomic, but not XKDC or whatever it's called. It was Unshelved, a comic about a library, who reported in their news that QC was about to explore the world of libraries back in 691: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=691
I thought the comic was funny, and I liked how there were already 691 as there was a lot for me to read and it proved the artist was reliable. So I decided to read it.
Now, I have a deep, abiding hatred for reading things out of order and spoilers (my mother now knows better than to give me a second book in a series of connected books which all stand alone), so I went straight back to number one. Then I went back to 691 and back to 1 a few times because I honestly thought I'd clicked a different link to another comic, the art was so different. But once I started reading it, that was it, I was hooked.
But what really surprised me was eight months later I turned my mother into a QC fan without even trying. She had a similar process to the opening poster. When I visited, she just read the daily one over my shoulder for eight months. I did notice after a while she was stopping whatever she was doing in another room to come and see the days QC with me, which I thought a little strange. I wish I remembered which ones they were now. One was Hannelore thinking her new medication which had made her very sleepy and forgetful was great because she wasn't mortified at being in public in her underwear because Mum told me her mother had had to reject a medication because it made her forgetful and not caring like Hannelore, which is not something you can do married to a sheep farmer in shearing season.
Then one morning I got an email from Mum which saying she was reading the QC archives, my didn't the art change, my didn't Jeph get bored of Sarah quickly. That same day, five hours later, she sent me an email titled: "WAAAAAA!" with a one sentence message: "I have reached the end of Questionable Content!" And not long after that my Dad read them all because he feels if both of us like something it is probably good. He decided we were right.
We all still read them daily and enjoy them. We sent each other a lot of emails during the Faye Gets Fired and Nearly Dies arc. My Dad's a psychologist and had a few things to say about addiction, and my Mother was using her encyclopedic knowledge of the archives to point out previous times friends have tried to address Faye's drinking problem, and how Faye has never responded to someone saying she should stop drinking either for the night or for her life by agreeing. The opposite, she normally takes it as a sign she should drink more.
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So what happens when they inevitably find the forum?
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Who says they aren't already among us?
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So what happens when they inevitably find the forum?
Imagine what a three-way thread with Marten, Jim and Veronica discussing a comic strip. That's basically what I expect Wildroses' on-line interaction with the parents would be! :wink:
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I too was linked by a webcomic, but not XKDC or whatever it's called. It was Unshelved, a comic about a library, who reported in their news that QC was about to explore the world of libraries back in 691: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=691
Interesting. That's how I found QC, too.
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I feel like I'm one of the few who got hooked in early, then fell out right about the time Faye and Sven started hanging out more (could see the writing on the wall on that one and I didn't particularly care for it).
Went intermittent for a while then came back a few years later right around the introduction of Marigold's crush on Angus.
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So what happens when they inevitably find the forum?
Imagine what a three-way thread with Marten, Jim and Veronica discussing a comic strip. That's basically what I expect Wildroses' on-line interaction with the parents would be! :wink:
I've been part of a forum with both parents and my big brother. It was fun!
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We don't really need forums to discuss and speculate about QC, seeing as we all have each other. Plus I think I put them off from my descriptions of how the forum reacted when Dora and Marten broke up and Claire confessed she was trans...
Actually while I scan the QC forum occasionally, what I really come to the forum for is Alice Grove. There is so much we don't know in Alice Grove it's a lot more fun speculating and reading other people's speculations.
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We all still read them daily and enjoy them. We sent each other a lot of emails during the Faye Gets Fired and Nearly Dies arc. My Dad's a psychologist and had a few things to say about addiction, and my Mother was using her encyclopedic knowledge of the archives to point out previous times friends have tried to address Faye's drinking problem, and how Faye has never responded to someone saying she should stop drinking either for the night or for her life by agreeing. The opposite, she normally takes it as a sign she should drink more.
That's interesting- I was always curious to hear what actual psychologists & psychiatrists might think of a strip that focuses on characters with so many mental issues. Especially since some of them actually see therapists.
I definitely noticed a lot of references to Faye's alcoholism, and her defensiveness of it, over the years. And how the characters talked about it being a problem, but then kind of dropping it and not bringing it up again. It reminded me of all the times (SO MANY TIMES) the strip had everyone get wasted together, and the times Jeph had his characters extoll the virtues of getting someone to "open up" socially by liquoring them up. Every single person I told that to was like "Oh my GOD- THAT's not healthy!" It was quite interesting to discover that this was in fact JEPH's own personal hang-up, and that HE drank in order to deal with people. A lot of the strip made a lot more sense after that.
Of course, alcoholism in the strip makes a lot more sense when I remember that while WE'VE all aged during the duration of the strip, the CHARACTERS barely have- they're all in their early 20s, which kind of makes it more "okay" that they drink a lot. It seems like only Faye has a real problem with the stuff.
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I actually do think that people open up socially by having a drink or two. I don't think that it is abusive or even dangerous behavior, unless you are against drinking in general.
the fact that Jeph often showed the group unwinding and having a few drinks has never been a red flag to me.
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I've been reading QC for a little more than a year now, after the first of many archive binges. The funny thing is, I'd come across the strip a few times before then, and for some reason I'd read the first five strips or so, but it never quite clicked. Well, I was bored one night, so I figured I'd read 100 strips and either be bored out of my skull or end up liking it, but I would've at least given it a fair shot.
So that brings me, in a roundabout sorta way, to a question: who else had a few false starts with the strip? Or am I in the minority in taking a few tries to get hooked?
Wasn't like that for me with QC.
However, that does mirror my experience with XKCD.
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I actually do think that people open up socially by having a drink or two. I don't think that it is abusive or even dangerous behavior, unless you are against drinking in general.
People do open up socially with a drink or two. It's not necessarily abusive, but it's still not necessarily a good idea to encourage other people to do it or take them to a bar for that specific purpose.
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I just don't think its a big deal. I mean, you could argue that by even portraying people enjoying alcohol and drinking without consequences (for most of the case, anyway) Jeph is encouraging "alcoholic culture".
But alcohol is a widespread social custom.
Jeph hasn't shown the group taking someone who is unwilling out for drinks and forcing them to drink. And he has shown some of the downsides to drinking in excess. I just don't see the big deal of showing a group of people drinking a bit to unwind and get to know each other better.
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You also have to take the drinking in context with the local culture as well.
In parts of Europe either wine or beer is part of everyday life and does not see much difference in the amount of abuse that happens.
Here in Canada I did not see the High-school / College culture regarding abuse that I have heard about and seen on the other side of the lakes.
Then again there are parts where a being a drunkard is the norm - I'm thinking of certain parts of Russia and Poland.
Mind you this is all based on personal experience but my sample sets may have been outliers.
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I got my start when a friend posted a strip on his facebook wall and I clicked thru and hit random and started the archive at a time my wife and her sister and mom went on a cruise so I had hours to go thru it. At the end my eyes were bleeding but I was hooked. Stayed up WAY too late.
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I actually do think that people open up socially by having a drink or two. I don't think that it is abusive or even dangerous behavior, unless you are against drinking in general.
the fact that Jeph often showed the group unwinding and having a few drinks has never been a red flag to me.
Oh, the whole gang getting wasted a lot isn't a red flag to me, either- they're all young adults, many are in college, and they have few responsibilities. It's pretty normal. It was mainly the "the gang brings Marigold out to drink to help her get over her social inhibitions" thing that sparked a "wait, what?" moment with me. I recall one fan somewhere was horrified by a "you can only have friends if you drink" mentality and "the only cast member who doesn't get drunk is the socially-maladjusted loner- WTF" impression they got, but I wouldn't go that far.
I wouldn't doubt someone can open up emotionally a bit better with a glass or two of booze, but the whole "you can drink to get over your anxiety" thing is KIND OF a dangerous precedent.