I'm going to start off by saying that every comic I hyperlink in this blog, I enjoy and read, despite the complaints I level against them. Right then. Off I go.
I love webcomics, and I intend to create my own eventually. I think they're a great way to express yourself without too much pressure from deadlines, and if you find a writer you like, they don't often disappoint. But I do have my issues with webcomics.
The most frequent problem I have is with male leads. The problem is that so many of the male leads in webcomics are snotty, arrogant douchebags who achieve astronomical levels of success and fulfillment and never get what's coming to them. It gets offputting after a while. I understand that part of the humor of these characters is the fact that people in the real world would never put up with that sort of shit, but sometimes I gt really sick of it. I just prefer my main characters to be likable, that's all. And while I'm on the subject of male leads, I want more webcomics where the primary character is female. Yeah, that would be nice.
Another problem I have with some webcomics is that the drawings are too simple or there's too much text. This is, of course, not universal. Sometimes, a simpler drawing style works well for a comic's overall tone and humor style. In fact, when a writer isn't always concerning himself/herself with perfect art, it can often lead to some of the more well-written comics out there. But too much text, I believe, is almost never a good idea. The best comics in the world are written succinctly and get straight to the point.
Another problem I have with webcomics is when webcomics don't freaking update. I don't think it's much to ask for more than one comic every month, is it? I sincerely believe that every webomic should update at least once a week, and ideally more.
With that said, let me tell you about my favorite webcomic: Questionable Content. It has none of the problems I've mentioned above. First off, there's the writing and characters. The writing is both humorous and realistic, with very well-rounded characters to go with it. (Okay, so maybe the robot characters aren't technically "realistic," but the whole comic is so bloody immersive that it never causes problems.) Most of its characters are female, in fact, the only male character who could really be considered a "lead" is Marten, and he is very human. His sense of humor is snarky, but not arrogant, and he's pretty much the antithesis of overconfident, and as for douchebaggery, it's done in the right sort of way. Once in a while he says something really stupid, but it works because doing stupid stuff isn't his whole character, it's a flaw. You know, like a real person. And when he does do something stupid, he actually has to deal with repercussions. Again, like a real person. This is how a male character should be written. Most of the lead characters (and even most of the secondary characters) are female, and they each have their own distinct and compelling personalities, and they're all likable in some way while being very humanly flawed. The art is also great. It's a fairly simple, cartoony style, but each character looks distinct and recognizable, rather than just being the same character over and over with different hairstyles, eye colors, and clothing tacked on. And if you're reading all the comics from start to current, it's really cool to see the drawing style slowly evolve into its current form. Also, it updates five days a week, which is awesome. I'm not saying that every comic can update that much. After all, QC is how the creator makes a living. I'm just saying, it's pretty nice. Anyone reading this blog, go read QC once you're finished. You will not regret it.
Thing I like about the past 24 hours: Playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with my friends, and looking back over all the amusing photos we've captured in-game.
Thing I dislike about the past 24 hours: Being so bloody tired.
Song addiction of the day: "Go The Distance," as performed by daniscool99. Multitrack barbershop is so cool.
Number of caffeinated beverages in the last 24 hours: 0
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
If you're looking for a comic with a strong female lead, then it would be hard to do better than Girl Genius. Which has a strong female lead, but manages to avoid almost all of the problems I have with female comics that have a strong female lead (or lack of male leads) that I'm about to outline below.
Among the problems I have found with female character dominated comics is that they tend to cut out the antics due to their "immaturity". QC manages to avoid this for the most part (although I think that he's gotten a little stale over the past couple of arcs) by introducing the characters of Pintsize and Hannelore. However, the fact that Marten is the only strong male lead does tend to lead to what I call the Buffy effect, where almost all of the moving and shaking is done by the female characters, and the male characters just react to whatever happens to them rather than actively setting and acheiving goals. At its worst it can lead to the male character becoming "Just one of the girls, effeminate (Wil, but I'm tired of looking through the archive), or if they aren't emasculated, they're asses (sven). Masculine modes of thought become something to be reviled, rather than respected as equal to feminine modes. Admittedly, QC doesn't have too bad a case of this, and I still read an enjoy the comic, but I do wish that Marten would take the time to enjoy an action movie every once in a while.
Post a Comment