I’ve been talking about it for a while, so let’s finally get it started. It’s time to celebrate my 500th comic by talking about my favorite and least favorite comics on this site. Today I’ll talk about the least favorite ones. The ones where I don’t like the joke, the art, the message, etc.
Some ground rules first. I won’t talk about any comics I’ve drawn in 2019. Like most artists, I don’t like my earliest works, so this is a good way to avoid easy targets. The bad comics also need to stand out in some way; if a particular flaw was a habit of mine for some time (for example, making the arms too long), I’m not including all comics that have it. It would be a boring list if all the entries were bad in the same way. I will go easier on the earlier comics. Artists are supposed to get better with time, after all. Lastly, these are my personal choices. If you like any of these comics, that’s okay, but your opinion isn’t mine. Let’s begin with the tenth worst:
Number 10: Comic 22: Double Tap’s Birthday
This comic doesn’t look that bad on the first glance, but you just need to look at the bottom. I really messed up the sitting pose. The legs are too thin and too short. He looks like he’s sitting on his feet, which would be very uncomfortable. Why didn’t I just draw him sitting normally? I was able to do it!
That being said, I still like the joke and it’s a pretty early comic. I posted it in January, 2020. It just barely follows the “no 2019 comics” rule. That’s why it’s only at number 10 spot.
Number 9: Comic 30: Receiving Comments
To give you some context, several readers asked me to insert them into my comic. I had no idea what they looked like, so I created a genderless and ethnically ambigous character to represent them: The Commenter. They did not have a good introduction. This comic is just lazy reference humor. Adventure Time is a cartoon that started out as random nonsense, but became a deeper and more complex story with time. Would you get the joke if you didn’t watch the show for several seasons? I’m aiming for a narrow audience with this one.
However, The Commenter did end up becoming a character that both me and the fans like, so there’s some merit to this comic. It’s not good in its own, but it did lead to good things. And once again, it’s a pretty early comic. I’m gonna be less and less nice as this list goes on.
Number 8: Comic 393: Self-Awareness at 99%
As you may have guessed, this comic was inspired by a comment. They asked me about TX2’s gender. I explained that, even though TX2 has no chromosomes, he still identifies as male. It made me wonder if he (along with every other fictional robot with a gender identity) counts as transgender.
Just because something is an interesting thought experiment, it doesn’t mean it’s a good joke. Wanda and TX2’s confusion and frustration aren’t that funny. This joke is half baked and I don’t even know how to fully bake it.
As long as I’m talking about this comic, I might as well answer my own question. As she was writing his code, Wanda referred to TX2 as “he”. Technically speaking, he’s assigned male at birth. Why was I wondering in the first place?
Number 7: Comic 52: Boys in White and Blue
Joke Cop made a “boys in blue” pun by accident and arrested himself. Would anyone get the joke without the title? That’s the biggest problem, but there’s a few more. I don’t like how the plate of soup looks like a flat disc. Was there really nothing I could do to make it look three-dimensional? I also don’t like the “CONFORM!” sign in the background. Yes, Joke Cop is a control freak. There’s plenty of more subtle ways to convey that; I don’t need a poster with big red letters.
Number 6: Comic 367: Animal to Lift Your Spirit
This comic isn’t so bad on it’s own, but I don’t like how unoriginal it is. It’s a rehash of a previous comic, but less funny. Bright Side, Anne Cap and Brad Joke’s love of unusual animals was established in earlier comics and it was done in a funnier way. The one saving grace is that I enjoy drawing comics where a bunch of different characters interact. At least I got some joy out of it, unlike the next entry…
Number 5: Comic 163: A Belle with a Bell
The joke is just… Freedom is bad with money. There’s little to no wit or creativity here. Freedom didn’t screw up in an interesting way, it’s just a mundane situation being mundane. The only funny thing is that I realized the comic was not funny almost immediately after I drew it. I just posted it because I didn’t want my effort to go to waste. There is an old saying that goes, “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.” Maybe I should follow it.
Number 4: Comic 267: The Start of This Mess, Part 8
As you may already know, I made several story arks that spanned across several comics. My least favorite story is probably “The Start of This Mess”; the one where Pi Brain finds out about the origins of Flicker City. I don’t think it’s bad, it’s just underwhelming compared to the rest.
The one thing I will call bad is the ending. First of all, why is the modern day Flicker City just a bunch of blue rectangles? It works as a part of a background, but this isn’t the background. The panel is meant to show the rise of Flicker City, those buildings need more detail. I also don’t like how neither Pi Brain of Freedom change by the end of the story. It just makes it look pointless. The joke I made is nowhere near funny enough to make up for it. If it was a standalone comic, I wouldn’t be so angry, but this is the ending to a story ark. It needs to be good or it will be a major stain on the story. That’s why I’m so hard on it.
And now it’s time for the bottom three. With the previous seven comics, the problems boil down to “the art was bad” or “the joke was bad”. What follows are the comics I’m morally opposed to; I’ve shared some bad messaged by posting them. I didn’t promote white supremacy or anything like that, but I still want to rectify some things. Starting with…
Number 3: Comic 333: Crayons or Code
I swear, the numbers are a coincidence. The reason this comic made it so high on the list is because it’s a really poor analogy. An artist being inspired by someone else’s art is nowhere close to a developer taking someone else’s art and putting it in AI’s database. A lot of the time, it’s not consensual. Artists having their work stolen by AI developers is a serious issue and I shouldn’t have downplayed it like that. I feel like I threw my fellow artists under the bus.
My feelings about AI art are still complicated. If nobody’s art is taken without permission and nobody lies about having drawn it, there’s nothing immoral about AI art. I did use it as a part of the background (and several times for Wednesday posts), so I’d be a hypocrite if I wrote it off completely. On the other hand, there’s plenty of greedy and dishonest people out there. In hindsight, I should’ve checked if the websites I used stole the art for their databases. Ideally, AI should help artists, but there’s a good chance it will replace a significant number of them. It’s up to us people to use this new technology responsibly.
Number 2: Comic 153: A Story Unfolds, Part 5
Yes, it’s another part of the story ark. For context, my self insert wanted to make 1000 paper cranes, so he could make a wish to become a successful artist. He changed his mind and wished for Tamashii to be alive instead. I like the story, except for the part I showed you. First of all, why does the table just disappear in the third panel? If I wanted to show that Bright Side was up to his knees in paper cranes, there’s other ways to convey that.
That’s a small problem compared to the other one. I told the audience that their journey to success should be fun, which is not how the real world works. If you want to be successful, it will take a lot of hard and smart work. Obviously, you shouldn’t work yourself to an early grave, but you’re a naive idiot if you expect nothing but sunshine and rainbows on your way. And I was a naive idiot for making this comic.
If I made this story ark today, I would have Bright Side start making paper cranes with the goal of becoming a successful artist, but then realize that Tamashii needs the wish more than him. There wouldn’t be any bad messages in it. Just to be clear, I do like “A Story Unfolds”, but there was an obvious way I could’ve made it better. Just like with Number 4, the fact that this comic is a part of a bigger story causes it to lose a lot of points. It’s still not the one I dislike the most, though.
Number 1: Comic 458: Abort the Debate
Making a comic about abortion was a risky move in the first place; it’s a very controversial topic. The risk I took did not work out. The voice of reason should not be saying things like, “Nobody wants to oppress women.” There’s plenty of mysogynists out there. Hell, there’s still countries where women are second class citizens. I’m ashamed of having forgotten about that fact and I apologize. The same goes for Numbers 2 and 3.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the comic itself, but a lot of people on r/comics complained about it. I changed the text in the first panel to “Not every pro-lifer wants to oppress women and not every pro-choicer wants to kill babies” and posted it on r/webcomics, but people still complained. They said I was helping the enemy by criticizing both sides. I guess some people can never be safitfied.
And that’s the list. I know I sounded miserable throughout it, but I’m happy to have made it. I acknowledged my mistakes and I’m ready to more forward. Considering the fact that Number 1 is a relatively recent comic, I can’t promise I’ll never make a bad one again, but I’ll do my best. Next week, I’ll post the top 10 list of my favorite comics. I like a lot of them, so making a list will probably be harder than this one. I might even make it a top 15. We’ll see.