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[Oilman]

Since someone asked what I actually liked about QC, and then locked tbe thread, I'll kick it off as a separate thread.

It's mildky amusing and comes out daily at a time of day when I am not usually doing very much, apart from gathering various correspondence, reading the news etc. The cast are a fairly predictable Webcomic crew of losers stuck in the usual rut of service-industry non-jobs, there is the usual over-representation of homosexuality (seriously, who really knows that many gay oeople?) sexualised view of life and living beyond their financial means with no obvious problems.

The last one is a staple of comics, from Dagwood Bumstead to Homer Simpson, of course.

The AI/AnthroPC angle is interesting. Momo is a genuinely original character, an inversion of the "cute robot girl" trope - she IS a "cute robot girl" but doesn't play the role, she IS an "anime character" but tries not to be. May was a good one-shot as a holo but now she's just tedious, with a side-order of political correctness. She COULD have been interesting, as an exploration of the whole "Robot Jail" scenario but I don't know where that went to. She COULD have been an exploration of the whole issue of robots eroding low-paid employment, but another opportunity lost. Pintsize is a one-joke character that has outlasted his time.

Dale and Marigold are interesting. They are outside the whole "hipster" thing and I think I might quite like Dale IRL. Marigold's whole shut-in scenario is familiar to any parent, although the whole "anime porn" thing is overdone, another Webcomic generality it seems.

The USreadership probsbly haven't seen it, or don't understand it if they have, but one if the huge successes of British tv in recent years has been "Gavin and Stacey", a rom-com of sorts about a rather sweet, and quite unremarkable young couple surrounded by a cast of grotesques and eccentrics. It works much better than it sounds, because you genuinely do care about the eponymous central characters and the secondary characters are genuinely funny.... but it knew when it had done the joke, and stopped.

You can see this in GWS, where the couples - Clarice and Joshua, Maureen and Jameson, to some extent Chrus and Melody - are moving steadily away from the central gag of "anti-social selfish loser and her ditzy friend"

[Carl-E]

usual over-representation of homosexuality (seriously, who really knows that many gay oeople?)

[raises hand]

Seriously, overrepresentation?  We have what, Henry and his new husband (should we count couples as separate people?), Tai, Dora who's bi so counts as half (?), and... well, that's about it.  Thats 3 1/2 people in a cast of what, 30 or so? 

I know more gay people than that in my church, and we have a pretty small congregation!  My daughter went to a school of 1500, her graduating class was about 450, and of the people she knew in that class (not a large group, really - she's a bit shy) there were at least a half dozen that she knew were gay. 

If I had every gay person I know in town over for a party, it would be a respectable sized bash.  Probably could fit them all in the house, but it's a pretty big house.  And it's not a big town - only about 50K in the entire area. 

I'm thinking that either a) you don't get out much, or b) you know more people that are gay than you think you do, because they're not out to you.  That may be an issue of your attitudes about gay people, I don't know.  I understand "gaydar" is pretty sensitive, it not only allows a gay person to tell when another one is around, but also when to clam up to protect themselves.   


The rest of your post is an interesting analysis, even though there are parts of it I disagree with, but that's all a matter of opinion. 

[hedgie]

It also depends on which circles one hangs out in.  Certain subcultures and social groups have a *lot* more LGBT people than the population at large.  This comic centres around Marten's social circle, which just happens to not follow the normal percentages.

[Half Empty Coffee Cup]

usual over-representation of homosexuality (seriously, who really knows that many gay oeople?)

Seriously, overrepresentation?

This is a classic conservative/progressive brainspace difference. Or did you not understand what's going on here by his choice of username and language, Carl-E?

Let's address this in a different way. Oilman: It's over representation for people who project a countenance (with language, demeanor, and mannerisms all contributing) which suggests it may not be safe to be truthful about which way one's attractions lie. On the other hand, for those who exude a sense of safety, inclusion, and nonjudgment, and particularly in a college town as well, this isn't a surprising mix of people and qualities at all, but reflective of lived reality. Homosexuality really can be that abundant in given social spheres.

Which is not to imply that you yourself are judgmental of them, Oilman. I wouldn't assume such a thing. But others might. When we speak, act, gesture, we let off little liberal or conservative tells, and to us it's always the most natural thing in the world because rather than it being a deliberate attack on those who don't think as one does, it is a representation of the way with which we view the world. And while some sets of views are correlated, few are coupled irrevocably. It doesn't do to assume some of one's views by a vocal (textual?) tell regarding other views. But it does mean that your own perception of the world, some of which is what is picked for you to be allowed to know by those who may feel threatened, is not necessarily the truth!

By the way, these tells I'm talking about? They're probably what prompted people to question why you even enjoy QC in the first place. This is because the nature of what a surrounding group considers political is tied (proportionally) to how far from the group consensus a given thought, post, etc... is. Just as you view some comic strips as being a politicized soapbox, there are users here who will hear these tells and think you're on a soapbox of your own.

The takeaway lesson is that everything is political, and there is no escape from it. Even the act of continuing to draw breath is political. The best thing to do is to recognize when we're being irked by someone else's political tells and find a way to acknowledge that they're not necessarily meaning to act in an affront to you.

And if my post itself feels like an affront to anyone at all by addressing the elephant/donkey in the room, then I have no real help but to shrug.

[Kugai]

If he turns out to be a Troll, the Ban Hammer will be wielded.

[Oilman]

It's a classic liberal-left response that I actually raised several points, and all the replies jump on the "gay" aspect.

I'd always understood that people with varying degrees of homosexual leanings represented around 12% of the population, which (as has been pointed out) is statistically about right in QC. However the nature of that representation is another matter.

The British writer and media personality Stephen Fry is about as gay as it gets, if he were any more camp, he'd glow in the dark. However it's noteworthy that his portrayal of homosexuality in school and college life (The Liar, in particular) is extremely dark and negative. Evelyn Waugh portrays several gay characters (notably Sir Ralph Brompton) who were clearly drawn from life, and their over-arching characteristic us their untrustworthiness.

Marten is shown as delighted that he now has "three dads" with no suggestion that abandoning his mother us in any way blameworthy. Of course, this is hand-waved in that SHE is a sex-worker of ample income and Marten has left home, but it's a very soecifuc view, don't you think?

[hedgie]

*plonk*

[Half Empty Coffee Cup]

As to my own response, as I was aiming to quell certain arguments that have been overplayed in all the internet comment cesspools that you may be familiar with, I decided to settle on the part that others had already picked out as what they were going to object to in order to extract from that a general lesson: If you can tell from someone's speech that their position comes from their personal politics, take a deep breath, try to imagine their life story, and maybe not reflexively see each other as enemies. Your other tells weren't relegated to 'the gay thing' exclusively, though. "Losers", for example, becomes a coded word when taken out of schoolyard posturing and into a description of people just beginning to figure out where they're going in life. (READ: Libspeak: classism (Yes, I'm being sardonic.)) As does the word "grotesques" when used to describe people of any stripe. "Sexualized" can come from either side of the isle, of course, depending on whether it's a feminist or conservative Christian uttering the phrase (Or from both sides at once, if a conservative Christian feminist decides to enter the fray)

My real argument is about none of these things, though. You're welcome to your views, and I'm not going to zealously harp on any of these points because trying to convince someone against something they hold as fundamentally true is a waste of time.

What I really want is an awareness of language, here, and the ways in which we accidentally pick fights.

[Is it cold in here?]

Marten is shown as delighted that he now has "three dads" with no suggestion that abandoning his mother us in any way blameworthy.

Er, what?! Marten's complicated feelings toward his father have come up more than once, and where is there evidence that Henry abandoned Veronica?

(mod)Nothing wrong with political discussions in their place. If this continues drifting into politics I'll move it to Discuss.(/mod)

[mustang6172]

Only while reading this did it dawn on me that Robot Jail is pretty much The Bizzarro Matrix.

[explicit]

Well if we're hung up on the homosexuality part I'm going to try to respond as succinctly as possible.

QC is inclusive of many sexualities and ways of thinking/being. That's what makes it interesting. Saying there's an overrepresentation of these types of people (just going over the broad array of sexuality in general) is preposterous. When you only follow a dozen or so people statistics are pretty much useless (not enough people to make an accurate representation of the total population). You're basically saying that because there's more than one gay person in this comic it's unrealistic and/or biased. (That wasn't succinct at all dammit...)

That may not be what you're trying to say, but that's how I saw it.

[Is it cold in here?]

That sample size problem is the reason not to sweat it because Jeph hasn't introduced a Jewish/First Nations/Tibetan/Russian/!Kung/Zoroastrian/Elbonian/whatever character. It's a large enough cast that they crowd each other for screen time but not large enough to draw any conclusions from its composition.

[Oilman]

"Grotesques" are common in all forms of literature - characters exaggerated beyond life for effect. Nessa from G&S is a grotesque, in these sense that most of the characters would pass unremarked IRL - especially the eponymous couple - but Nessa, no. But, she is comic, and interacts with the others; the plot arc about her unwanted and unintended pregnancy is quite touching. Smithy is a selfish idiot who has to face up to his perceived responsibilities.

Bill Sykes is a grotesque, as is Fagin, although Fagin was partly drawn from life. Mr Micawber is one, but somehow likeable and he turns into a "happy ever after" at the end.

I'd say Marten's parents were grotesques; Pintsize, definitely. HANNERS' mother qualifies. Tai, arguably. Marten, Dora and most of the female secondary characters are pretty sane, as are Angus and Steve.

[Oilman]

That sample size problem is the reason not to sweat it because Jeph hasn't introduced a Jewish/First Nations/Tibetan/Russian/!Kung/Zoroastrian/Elbonian/whatever character. It's a large enough cast that they crowd each other for screen time but not large enough to draw any conclusions from its composition.

Wasn't Natasha Russian? She was hardly a sympathetic character. What about the Russian woman in Steve's "secret agent" story arc?

[tragic_pizza]

It's a classic liberal-left response...

Oh for fuck's sake.

[explicit]

It's a classic liberal-left response...

Oh for fuck's sake.

Yupp, I mean, it was the only controversial part of his original post unless someone really wanted to defend anime porn.

Lesson, don't say ignorant things and expect people not to say something about it.

[Is it cold in here?]

Global Moderator Comment

Back on the rails, please.

[Akima]

there is the usual over-representation of homosexuality (seriously, who really knows that many gay oeople?)

It's a classic liberal-left response that I actually raised several points, and all the replies jump on the "gay" aspect.

Maybe that is because your other points were quite reasonable and did not reveal such an unpleasant streak of outright prejudice. You described as "over-representation" the presence of, as Carl-E points out, a few gay people out of a large cast, two of whom (Marten's Dad and his husband) have hardly featured in the strip. From this I conclude that, to you, "over-representation" means "having any gay people in the comic at all". Then you move on to this:

I'd always understood that people with varying degrees of homosexual leanings represented around 12% of the population, which (as has been pointed out) is statistically about right in QC. However the nature of that representation is another matter.

The British writer and media personality Stephen Fry is about as gay as it gets, if he were any more camp, he'd glow in the dark. However it's noteworthy that his portrayal of homosexuality in school and college life (The Liar, in particular) is extremely dark and negative. Evelyn Waugh portrays several gay characters (notably Sir Ralph Brompton) who were clearly drawn from life, and their over-arching characteristic us their untrustworthiness.

So your "over-representation" complaint is not a matter of numbers (despite your explicitly asking "seriously, who really knows that many gay people?")? Instead your objection apparently is simply that Jeph does not depict homosexuals in a sufficiently negative way? I don't know why you imagine we should regard Evelyn Waugh as having any more accuracy in his views on homosexuality than in his extremely unpleasant racist and anti-semitic opinions. Your chosen "authority" is certainly not a man with whom I would wish to associate myself, or invoke in support of my opinions, but the choice is yours, of course.

[McH]

(seriously, who really knows that many gay oeople?)

Err.. I know more IRL than in the QC cast, I think. My best friend is gay, I know his ex, I have a bisexual friend, a lesbian friend who has a partner and her own gay best friend, all of whom I know. I'm also friendly acquainted with a man who has only recently changed back from having identified and lived as a woman for most of his adult life. Oh, and the woman I most recently dated is pansexual, just to add even more variety. It's really not that uncommon if you can be bothered to be aware.

[Scarblac]

It's a classic liberal-left response that I actually raised several points, and all the replies jump on the "gay" aspect.

I'd always understood that people with varying degrees of homosexual leanings represented around 12% of the population, whic However it's noteworthy that his portrayal of homosexuality in school and college life (The Liar, in particular) is extremely dark and negative.

Note that an important point of The Liar is that it's full of hilarious bizarre anecdotes that never happened.

But also, love and sex during high school is terrible for almost everybody, and I think he was describing that. The main character happened to be gay, but the various problems (e.g. portraying yourself as a very sexual being, but not daring to express yourself to a person you adore) are hardly unique to gays.

Thirdly, Fry was in high school in the early 70s. Homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967. It wouldnt'be be surprising if his experience was less happy than that of straight people.

Using The Liar as an argument for the idea that having gays in the comic is only OK as long as they're untrustworthy, unhappy types is ridiculous.

[Emperor Norton]

My social group is remarkably gay, I've commented on it before in my real life, but it makes total sense. Friends are generally self-selected, and people tend to be friends with people with similar belief systems, and since social liberals don't have an issue with gay people, gay people are more likely to be social liberals, and therefore will be represented higher in friend groups with that belief system. My entire D&D group is all non-hetero sexuality of some sort (my wife and I are both Bi, all the other players are gay men), we considered flying a rainbow flag on our caravan in game.

Of the people who came to my new year's eve party we have:

3 gay men
2 bisexual men
3 straight men
4 bisexual women

(and not even all of my D&D group made it)

Yeah, much much higher than in QC.

[Neko_Ali]

My thought is pretty much along Emperor Norton's line. Like tends to attract to like. You tend to hang around people with similar experiences and attitudes towards you. A very high percentage of my friendship circles are in the LGBT community. The same way as a lot of my friends are geeks and nerds like me. In QC, it's really more a circle of college slackers, indie rockers and such. If anything, it's a surprise that the mix up of the group is as varied as it is.

[Carl-E]

Hmm.  Akima pretty much addressed my issue - I only responded to the statement about gays because it was the only part of the OP that I really disagreed with (as I said at the time). 

Interestingly, others are reporting personal experiences because of the way it was expressed, but that's not really the point.  As you yourself admit, and others have pointed out, they're probably a bit underrepresented in the comic. 

The same's probably true of alcoholics... sorry, sidetracked for a moment. 

As for grotesques, I think I have to disagree with a few of your assumptions.  They use stereotypes, and the ones you mention from Dickens are good examples, though several develop more later (like Jeph, Dickens was writing serially).  But Tai?  Maybe in the beginning, but she was developed a lot into a whole personality.  Marten's dad?  Well, no, he wasn't stereotyped much - we really don't know much about him except that he was a good dad, and they split amicably.  So a case of underdevelopment there, I guess, but not much of a reliance on stereotype - more of a cipher than a grotesque.  Maurice is more of a stereotype, but has had very little "screen time", so I guess he could qualify.  Veronica also uses stereotyping to some extent, but again we've seen the beginnings of her being fleshed out as a character. 

Hanner's mom, and Pintsize?  No argument there!  Although Pintsize does have hidden depths, as has been mentioned on other threads in here. 

I guess the upshot is that you can expect thoughtful responses to comments that may or may not be off the cuff.  We're rarely knee-jerk around here, although it gets that way in the WCDT when there's a big dramatic arc tht brings in new people. 



Oh, and welcome to the (rest of the) forums! 

[Emperor Norton]

Hell, on the strength of self-selection: Only one person in my D&D group isn't polyamorous, and that is WAY rarer than LGBT.

[Boomslang]

Since my social circle actually doesn't include that many gay people (one of the people I work with is, and a friend of mine is bi), I'll actually take issue with a completely separate part of your post. You describe the cast as having, in your words, "service-industry non-jobs". That... doesn't even make sense. If someone is paying you to do it, it's a job. Most of their jobs admittedly aren't careers, although Dora is an entrepreneur and works her ass off so you can't lump her in with her employees even if you limit it to dead-end work, and certainly if starting your own business is your idea of a 'loser' I really don't understand what you expect.

Beyond that, I'm questioning your awareness of economic realities if you think most of the cast are living beyond their means. Dora is the only one shown who can pay rent on an apartment without having someone else help her, but she owns a freaking business. Hannelore is heir to ridiculous wealth and wouldn't even have a job if she didn't want one. The rest of the cast can get by and even make the occasional splurge, but that's normal in people who have full time jobs, are healthy, and don't spend a huge portion of their income on housing, regardless of whether they're making only a bit above minimum wage.

[Aimless]

I have to admit "over-representation of homosexuality" is one of the most absurd and tragicomic things I've read on these forums. Welcome to the bitter shocking reality of having your opinions examined, Oilman (also to 2015). If you know more than 25 people then perhaps you too know almost "that many gay people", but I dunno.

[DSL]

You know, I always had a similar complaint about "Star Trek." I mean, who knows that many spacepersons?

[Aimless]

You know, I always had a similar complaint about "Star Trek." I mean, who knows that many spacepersons?

Now there's a bunch of nonjobbers...

[Near Lurker]

It just baffles me, not that someone would make this comment, but that someone would make it about QC, of all comics.  I mean, basically everyone's straight - of the major characters, ostensibly everyone but Dora and Tai, and of the more peripheral characters, of whom there are many, all but Amanda, Henry and Maurice, Scott (who'll probably never be seen again), and a few frankly unimportant kids Tai knows.  And this in a city sort of famous IRL for lesbians.  I see this comment a lot, with about the same reaction, but usually it's on a comic that isn't so damn full of breeders.

[Zebediah]

You know, I always had a similar complaint about "Star Trek." I mean, who knows that many spacepersons?

Vulcans are way overrepresented in Star Trek. And don't even get me started on Klingons.

[explicit]

I wish I knew more about Star Trek so I could come up with funny things to say...

[Omega Entity]

Pssh, you want to talk overrepresented in Star Trek? Frickin' Andorians! Everywhere you look, all you see is blue skin 

(I'm actually amazed that I even remembered what they were called.)

[AprilArcus]

Marten is shown as delighted that he now has "three dads" with no suggestion that abandoning his mother us in any way blameworthy.

Marten has had fourteen years to get over his parents divorce, and it has been shown that he was not precisely thrilled about it at the time.

[A Duck]

Well, this is one surreal thread... Let's do this, point by point:

The cast are a fairly predictable Webcomic crew of losers stuck in the usual rut of service-industry non-jobs,

That...Actually isn't true. Dora has her own business, Tai is essentially the boss at the library. I don't think the library quite qualifies as "service-industry", either. In fact, the only main cast actually stuck would be Faye, but that is a somewhat importan part of her character. Steve is a goddamn secret agent!

there is the usual over-representation of homosexuality (seriously, who really knows that many gay oeople?)

I do know a lot of gay people, proportionally way more than in the comic, as do many other that commented. Gay people exist and are everywhere, they seem "new" for some people because society is screwed up and many of those would never "come out" mere years ago. Many still never do.

sexualised view of life

People have sex. Get over it.

and living beyond their financial means with no obvious problems.

I don't see anyone in the comic living beyond their means. We can't have half of the comic being money problems, but it's been made clear that buying a guitar broke Marten's finances for some time. Again, the only one doing stuff beyond simply going to a bar is Hannelore, and not only her parents have all the money in the world, but she could make a lot of money herself, as far as we know.

May was a good one-shot as a holo but now she's just tedious, with a side-order of political correctness. She COULD have been interesting, as an exploration of the whole "Robot Jail" scenario but I don't know where that went to. She COULD have been an exploration of the whole issue of robots eroding low-paid employment, but another opportunity lost.

May just barely appeared since getting out of prison, and for what she did the issue WAS explored (see her difficulty on finding employment).

Pintsize is a one-joke character that has outlasted his time.

Pintsize himself said that long ago, and has developed since. We know he has "hidden depths" and I assume the current storyline will serve to further his character development

Dale and Marigold are interesting. They are outside the whole "hipster" thing and I think I might quite like Dale IRL. Marigold's whole shut-in scenario is familiar to any parent, although the whole "anime porn" thing is overdone, another Webcomic generality it seems.

The USreadership probsbly haven't seen it, or don't understand it if they have, but one if the huge successes of British tv in recent years has been "Gavin and Stacey", a rom-com of sorts about a rather sweet, and quite unremarkable young couple surrounded by a cast of grotesques and eccentrics. It works much better than it sounds, because you genuinely do care about the eponymous central characters and the secondary characters are genuinely funny.... but it knew when it had done the joke, and stopped.

You can see this in GWS, where the couples - Clarice and Joshua, Maureen and Jameson, to some extent Chrus and Melody - are moving steadily away from the central gag of "anti-social selfish loser and her ditzy friend"

Dale and Marigold went through a lot of development before they became a couple, but since that happened recently, they didn't have much time to develop afterwards. Hard to say we're "done" with them.

Marten is shown as delighted that he now has "three dads" with no suggestion that abandoning his mother us in any way blameworthy. Of course, this is hand-waved in that SHE is a sex-worker of ample income and Marten has left home, but it's a very soecifuc view, don't you think?

I don't see how accepting your father's remarriage has any relation whatsoever with abandoning your mother.

[Aziraphale]

Over-representation of homosexuality? In what universe? If anything, I think the number skews a bit low. I know far more LGB people than are represented in the QC-verse (haven't met as many trans* people), and I'd be willing to wager that you do too (whether they're comfortably out around you is something else again).

And a good number of whom I know because of other LGB people I know. The same would be true if you subbed, say, Portuguese for LGBT, and for the same reason: people tend to congregate with, and befriend, either people who are like them, or people who make the effort to understand them and treat them with friendship and decency.

[MooskiNet]

Edited:  My bad.  Off the cuff remark I should have thought about more.

[Kugai]

Global Moderator Comment

We're in two minds on that at the moment ourselves. Rest assured, your Mods are keeping an eye on the situation.

[Is it cold in here?]

(mod)Cough. That's our problem to deal with, and not by posting personal remarks. Which are offtopic.(/mod)

Don't the characters have the Improbable Food Budget going on? I will not post the link.

It's only right to point out that central characters are underachievers, and it's been pointed out in the strip about Faye and Marten. Marigold also has her own business in a skilled white collar field, but she gets less screen time than the Pugnacious Peach.

[Carl-E]

Marten is shown as delighted that he now has "three dads"

Uummm... two dads, I think. 

Also, Marigold works for her dad.  She may be doing a lot - doesn't he sell shoes, and she's handling the website?  That may be a Zappos sort of thing, and so it's really a full time job.  Then again, maybe not, but it pays well enough for a share in an apartment, and a new chassis for Momo (so long as she eats ramen for a while...)

[Zebediah]

He has two dads now. If Jim and Veronica wind up getting married, then he'll have three dads. "That's so many dads!"

[Penquin47]

As far as overrepresentation goes: I live in a small town in West Texas.  My high school has about 200 kids.  In any given year, we'll have somewhere between 0-6 students who are out of the closet.  I've heard that several of my former students came out later.  None of the teachers are, but in my case: I identify as bisexual, but I keep that to myself because a) I live in a small town in West Texas and if I told one person tomorrow, the whole town would know by next Tuesday, and I would probably be looking for a job this summer; and b) I don't have a girlfriend (or a boyfriend but that wouldn't require coming out).  I highly doubt I'm the only person who thinks that way, especially given that I've had 20+ years to come to terms with my sexuality, which is longer than my students have been ALIVE.  If you live in a highly conservative area, chances are you would find very similar thinking.  In a place like Marten's town, it's a lot safer to be out, so in addition to the townies/college students, you have people fleeing conservative areas for open-minded areas.  Compared to the general population, a liberal college town is just going to have more non-straight people than the population on average.

[hedgie]

Don't forget the LUGs.

[Oilman]

I don't know that Marigold qualifies as "skilled white-collar" but then again, we don't really know much about her background, how much work she really does for her father or what it brings in. However she could apparently pass the credit checks to sign for Momo's new chassis, and pay her rent so she must have a relatively good income.

[explicit]

She builds and maintains websites, that's pretty white collar.

[Neko_Ali]

White collar yes. Skilled? ehhhhh. A lot of people get by on those jobs with only basic knowledge and commonly available software tools. They don't make great websites, but serviceable, simple ones for people who have even less experience and knowledge. However Marigold has some tech knowledge. Enough to be a go-to person for AthroPC repair. How much she actually does for her father is unknown, but she seems to have a lot of free time. More than anyone else in the comic at least, aside from Sven Pintsize and Winslow.

[Oilman]

That's pretty much what I had thought. I know someone who did that sort of work as a stop-gap, getting work from a website of some sort. It wasn't great money but it kept the wolf from the door until he hit something better

 We've never seen anyone else go to her for AnthroPC repair, and knowing more about the subject than most of the cast isn't saying a lot.

[Omega Entity]

That's pretty much what I had thought. I know someone who did that sort of work as a stop-gap, getting work from a website of some sort. It wasn't great money but it kept the wolf from the door until he hit something better

 We've never seen anyone else go to her for AnthroPC repair, and knowing more about the subject than most of the cast isn't saying a lot.

White collar yes. Skilled? ehhhhh. A lot of people get by on those jobs with only basic knowledge and commonly available software tools. They don't make great websites, but serviceable, simple ones for people who have even less experience and knowledge. However Marigold has some tech knowledge. Enough to be a go-to person for AthroPC repair. How much she actually does for her father is unknown, but she seems to have a lot of free time. More than anyone else in the comic at least, aside from Sven Pintsize and Winslow.

Depends on how the site is made. If it's just a WordPress or Wix site with easily ported templates and the like, then yeah, pretty easy.

But if it's someone who knows how to build one from scratch, programming and tailoring the site specifically for what a client needs, then it really is a highly-skilled, white-collar job. Businesses that rely on a well-built site to sell their products pay big, big bucks to have a site custom-made to their needs.

A friend of mine did a two year course on how to do it, and now can make between $500 and $2000 per site he builds. Since those kinds of jobs are freelance and not a steady paycheck, he also works for a site-building company for the steady income. So yes, there is such a thing as a highly-skilled, highly-paid web designer.

[BenRG]

We've never seen anyone else go to her for AnthroPC repair, and knowing more about the subject than most of the cast isn't saying a lot.

The problems that Marigold have fixed were quite complex, especially Momo's bad firmware update. That isn't the sort of thing that your average end user could handle.

[Oilman]

Well, yes. That's the distinction between a professional engineer, which is DEFINITELY a white-collar skilled role, and an engineering technician, which isn't - but who may well overlap at least part of the functions of the professional engineer.

The example I was thinking of was actually a surveying technician who pretty much sucked the web-design stuff out of his thumb as a stop-gap, until he got another job in his REAL speciality. I know someone else who has left the oilpatch to establish himself in web design, because he is fed up with the travelling; HE is taking a year to do a Masters, and he is building on his past experience of client presentations to top-dollar clients

[pwhodges]

This is a story, not a tediously accurate account of real life.  It depicts what's needed to tell the story, and sufficient background to provide an environment for it.  Quibbling beyond that is just missing the point.