How can we save web-comics?

In terms of media, web-comics are a generally fledgling form of entertainment, just about a little more than a decade. And yet, it feels like we've all-ready reached the tipping point in terms of quality. Most web-comics nowadays start out as okay pop-culture comice, but then turn into basic soap-operas witha few references to geek culture thrown in. And I don't mean like "Brent and Miranda" level drama, I mean real straight up depressing ass drama. Do you know how many rape-story-lines I've read in web-comics? Two. That is two too many for comics that make fun of pop-culture.

Some refer to this as an instance of Cerebus syndrome, but I have READ Cerebus the Aardvark. When Cerebus got serious, it became a kick-ass satire on numerous subjects. When web-comics get serious, they turn into All my General Days of our lives....with video game references. Anyone whose read a web-comic knows how Satan-damned dramatic they can get and it's rediculous.

And so, the question at the top of this blog entry asks, what can we do to save web-comics? Well pretty much nothing with web-comics that are still in circulation. Famous web-comic authors are complete divas who never listen to their audience*COUGH-PvP-COUGH*. But for those of us who plan on making web-comics of our own, here's a short list of dos and do-nots:

1.) No break-up story-lines between recurring protagonists: It's depressing, nobody likes it, and it's completely pointless seeing how any idiot knows that they're going to get back together within a freaking year. The only comic that could pull this off was PvP, and even then it felt superfluos. A certain addendum to this, don't make characters in your comic be love-interests based on your girl-friend. The break-up get's twice as awkard when you realize this really happened.

2.)Good transition: If your comic ever has an epic adventure style story-arc, don't just instantly go back to normal stuff after that story is finished. It never transitions well, once you start with an awesome adventure style story you can't go back. Like how Walky followed "It's Walky" an amazing sci-fi epic with "Shortpacked" which is basically Multiplex but with a gay main-character(because that makes up for being completely borin). And don't get me STARTED on GPF. Remember GPF? Of couse you don't, and for good reason! After that awesome cross dimensional story-line, it instantly went back to silly office humor. NOooooooooooooooo. NO! You do not go from kick-ass sci-fi adventure to office humor! I want more alien fights! Another example of bad transition would be Dominic Deegan: Oracle for hire. Dramatic story-lines,puns,dramatic story-lines, puns-DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT HERE! You can't just go instantly back into humor after having a dramatic story, it's just annoying and makes the audience feel like you don't take them seriously.

3.) NO REBOOTS: They are a complete cock-tease to your audience, & most of the time they don't even need a reboot. Reboots show uncertainty in a writer and the audience loses faith in them after-words. Remember how much controversy Crisis on Infinite Earths caused? THEN DON'T REBOOT!

4.) Humor trumps relevancy: This applys to most pop-culture comics. Don't worry about how relevant the comic is in terms of pop-culture, just make sure that it is funny. The best example of this would be Penny-arcade, whose jokes knowadays are really fifty-fifty. They end up making a lot of jokes that don't bring that much laughs. Most of the punc-lines are way too obvious and not funny at all:


Did you get the punch-line? It's a happy ending! It's not so much laugh out loud joke more as much as an "Oh, I get it" joke that you don't laugh at. Not that funny, but because it's making fun of a viddeo game people will like it on face-book anyway. I don't mean to insult Tycho and Gabe, but their substance relies more on pop-culture rather than basic joke-telling.

5.) Strong female characters who aren't emotionally scarred: In the scope of fiction, strong female characters are hard to come by. In Doug Walker the Nostalgia Critic's review of Patch Adams he told how the nineties had a way of writing women. They would usually be tough on the out-side but on the inside turn out to be soft vulnerable messes who only act strong and tough because a man made them that way; and this has translated into modern media today. The comic "Questionable Content" comes to mind. The character Faye for the most part seems to be a strong independent female character at first who seems generally all-right. However the only reason she acts this way is to cover up her depression from her father shot himself in the face in front of her. What-the-FUCK! This is beyond sexist, this is just terrible writing all together. This also happens in the web-comic Dominic Deegan with the character Melna the orc. In her first appearance, she is seen as kick-ass feminist who hates sexism. As it turns out, she's an alcoholic emotionally scarred rape victim. I fucking hate web-comics some-times. It's not even her tragic past that bothers me, but the fact that this and many other media implies that feminist are just girls who got screwed over by some guy and only act this way out of a psychological defense mechanism! Whether your writing a web-comic, or anything else, don't do this cliche.

6.) No filler: Nobody likes filler in web-comics. This includes pages of female characters in swim-suits or lingerie, comics explaining why the comic hasn't updated in forever, and copy-pasta. Guest-comics are okay though. If this were a professional grade comic than maybe it'd be okay but seeing as how the average update schedule for web-comics is only three times a week, it's best you don't keep you damn audience waiting. And don't you DARE even say "Well I'm not being payed for this, so I can post whatever I want!" Fuck, you. Fuck you times infinity. When you make a product, you give people standards as to what to bring out. If you think that when your not meeting those standards the right thing to do is to insult your audience than you are an idiot. If you want people to buy your stupid product, then don't waster our time.

Well, that's all my opinions on web-comics in general that I can think of right now. Agree or disagree as much as you want. Thanks for readin' anyway.

Top most things I hate about fandom.

Fandoms can be a great thing sometimes. They let you know that there are people like you who like the same stuff you like, and they let the creators know that they're creations are loved. Generally fandoms on the surface are a wonderful thing. But keep in mind...that is just the surface. In the deep bowels of any fandom you will find the dregs of society, the scum of the Earth, generally annoying people. And I'm gonna complain about them because I'm a nerd with now life! Let's begin!

(Special addendum, I am no longer numbering my lists as I find it confusing for me to choose)

A.) Mary Sues: Ah the Mary Sue. Apparently the name was originally used as a satire for characters of this nature but has since become the official term. Basically a Mary Sue is a character that is inserted into a form of fiction that is based on the fan author. This would be all-right if not for the fact that they actually make this character crucial to the plot. This could include making said character a love interest to a previously existing character, or giving them some god like super power that makes them the most crucial member in the story. Wish fulfillment is one thing, but screwing with a previously existing fiction is another thing all together.

B.)Franchise noobs: Now, if someone likes a later series or season in a long-running series like Star Trek, Doctor Who, or the Simpsons I'm okay with it. But what bugs me is how some fans won't even bother to watch the original episodes. They claim that the new series is their favorite not because they have seen any of the other pieces of the franchise but because this is the only one they've seen. And when you recommend to them to watch some of the earlier stuff, some of them act like your just being a stupid genwunner(I hate how I know that term)! What don't you have to gain from seeing the roots of your favorite series? It's like claiming you are a history buff but only remembered the years you were alive. It's just silly.

C.) Stupid complaints: Now I have nothing against complaining about things, hell it's my favorite pass-time. Personally I feel that if a person complains all the time it shows that they are aware of the world they live in. However, I don't like it when they complain about stupid things in a meta-series. Such as complaining about characters not wearing an article of clothing or wearing a new article of clothing, a lot these dumb complaints are about clothes. Or how they complain about the new protagonist being different from the original protagonist even if in their actually good as characters by themselves. In terms of not knowing what they're talking about, fandoms make a close second to the religious right.

D.) Stupid complaints about complaints: Yeah, this one is kind of weird considering the previous point but its something that needs to be talked about in any scope of life. Numerous times whether on message boards or real life you try to make a reasonable complaint about something in the new addition to the franchise. And nine times out of ten you will hear or read "*BLANK* is just made to make people happy! Just like this version of *blank* and stop being a troll!" Isn't that just the worst? It's one thing if they were to correct me for being wrong which I'm always for because it helps me learn as a person but just telling me it's wrong to me complain EVER?! So I complain, do you expect me to just bottle it up and not complain? That is how ulcers are made you ulcer wanting fuck! Sorry...I have just read this stupid type of comment a lot.

And the thing I hate most about people in fandom is-

E.) Being mean(this forum doesn't show this quality of course): This is the worst things about fans of anything, if you don't like anything they like they will treat you like shit! They will act like you are the worst possible person who ever exists! And what's worse...people will agree with their opinion and not yours. They will gang up on you and tell you that you are wrong, pressuring you into thinking what they think. It's bad enough I had to deal with this shit in school, now every other forum I got to has a bunch of posters who are the emotional equivalent of high school bullies!

And that's my top five things I find annoying aboud fandom. Agree or disagree, I could care less. Until next time, Hail Satan, praise Christ, but fuck Bhuda cos he owes me 50 bucks.

My top worst things that try to be sci-fi.

In the scope of fiction, the suspension of disbelief is what allows people to enjoy some things. We can believe anything in fiction, no matter how fantastical and magical they seem. However, it gets kind of annoying when they try to explain some things with science saying that these things could exist in a just and sane universe. This would be fine if not for the fact that they are some times explained either HORRIBLY or not at all. This short list is composed of what I believe some of the worst examples of things trying to seem scientifically plausible- EVER!

A) Pokemon: Before I talk about Pokemon, let me talk about its rival franchise Digimon. In the Digimon franchise there are creatures known as Digimon, beings made of discarded computer data that have miraculously gained corporeal form. Because they are from a universe where the laws of physics basically do not exist, it makes sense for Digimon to be able to grow metal arms or turn into puppets naturally, hell the original cartoon even made fun of how ludicrous the world was at times. Pokemon on the other hand, does not share this awareness of how ludicrous it is.

For those of you who never played the games the idea of Pokemon is capturing monsters and making them fight other Pokemon(insert overused cock-fighting joke here). And when they win enough battles and level up sometimes they evolve to a higher form. Really it should be called metamorphosis rather than evolution, but that's not what I'm complaining about. What bugs me is how they actually want us to believe that these transformations are created through natural evolution. This would make sense except for one particular Pokemon in mind:

Blastoise. They actually expect us to believe that this thing could actually exist through natural science based evolution. Yeah....nooooooooooooo. No, a 150 or more times no. This is a creature made from mad science, this is a creature that defies all logic, this is the result of man's hubris gone too far, THIS IS A DAMN TORTOISE WITH WATER CANNONS MADE FROM BONE CARTRIDGE! It makes even less sense looking at it's previous forms Wartortle:

And Squirtle:

From an evolutionary-point it makes sense for Squirtle to turn into Wortortle. It gets a bigger tail for aquatic movement and large ears to hear sub-sonic waves in the water. Blastoise is not a logical change, it instead goes the complete opposite direction by becoming heavier and not even close to as hydrodynamic as its previous forms. Not to mention the water cannons don't even make sense seeing as how it could-SHOOT STREAMS OF WATER FROM ITS DAMN MOUTH! Why grow cannons that shoot water when you could all-ready shoot water?

Pokemon, teaching kids the exact opposite of how metamorphosis works.

B.)Cybertronians from the Transformers: Now I am not saying that I can't believe in robots with the technology to take on different forms, of course not. My only problem with this is- THEY NEVER EXPLAINED IT! 28 years and the series has yet to come up with a hokey sci-fi reason for how the Transformers can even exist! For Satan's sake it should be easy, just a simple sentence and then I'd be fine! But no, because Hasbro forgets that science fiction includes SIENTIFIC EXPLANATION!

C.)Silver Age Kryptonians/Krypton from Superman: Now, the original Golden age Kryptonians make at least an iota of scientific sense. The planet Krypton had higher gravity than Earth forcing Kryptonians to evolve denser molecular structures in order to survive. This is generally believable. Silver Age Kryptonians however have evolved the ability to have numerous eye abilities from x-ray to heat beams, breathe ice cold breaths, fly, have a force field around themselves giving them super strength...under a different colored sun. WHAT?! How the hell does that make sense? The science they give us is that Krypton was incredibly radioactive so Kryptonians evolved with radioactive body structures and are only able to be super when under the right light frequency. Now this is almost believable until you realize that a red sun is colder than a normal sun. And yet Krypton seemed to have a similar bio-structure to that of a yellow-sun world. Logically, beings under a red sun would have evolved to be weaker than that of people under a yellow sun, and the radioactive environment would have caused them to be weak as well. But NOPE! They were able to live happy normal lives as well as looking like normal fully evolved hominids. This...makes...no...SENSE! But you could argue that they being a super advanced species due to the luck of the draw that is evolution, that they developed immunity to radiation. Well then explain Kryptonite! That thing is pretty much normal radiation which kryptonians should've evolved genetic barriers towards by now and yet every time it touches the man of steel he turns all green and weak. Logically since they have a radioactive physiology they would face more along the lines of chemical imbalance and would turn more crazy than weak. But they had to give the strongest race some form of weakness(no matter how stupid it is).

Feel free to dispute me on this one, but I still feel if these guys were beings of magic there abilities would make more sense than creatures that evolved like this naturally.

And my top most awful thing that trys to sci-fi:

D.) Jedis from Star Wars: This isn't even close to scientifically possible. They are basically space wizards, with magical light based swords with beams that stop in mid-air when they should logically keep going into the sky until said light would dissipate( I'd go more into it but that's another thing altogether). But we were able to believe it because it worked with the narrative as well as giving a nice spiritual feel. And then George Lucas fucked that all up by saying that the powers of a jedi are a scientific phenomena created by bacteria in your blood stream called midichlorians....no. There is no damn way this can be scientifically explained. We believed it was awesome space magic before, and then he ruined it by saying that it is a biological condition that some schmucks are able to get, and if you don't have it than sucks to be you. And what makes it even worse is they still try to say the force still exists and that the midichlorians merely help certain people connect to the force. Uh...NO! You can not go back to magic after you just scientifically explained it! It is either science or magic, pick one-WERE AT WAR! This is probably one of the biggest retcons to the franchise and is one of the most hated parts to the prequel saga. Keep in mind there are plenty others but still.

Well those are my top my most fantasy things shamefully trying to be sci-fi. Now some of you may think that I may be being too nit-picky but hey...its me. Until next time, hail satan, praise christ, but fuck bhuda cos that jerk owes me 50 bucks.

How to save American animation.

Now if were to talk about the problems with Japanese or Canadian animation we'd be here all freakin' DAY. But for now we will talk about our beautiful home country America, the birth-place of modern animation. And as it's birth-place it most likely is also the place where it's going to DIE seeing as how things are. As a fan of cartoons since I was a tot I know all that's right and what's wrong with the industry, and sweet mama-jamma do I know what's wrong. This isn't a top ten list, but more or less what I think of when I'm writing them down.

1.) STOP REHASHING 80S CARTOONS: We can't all be Lauren Faust all-right? Even the okay rehashes like the new Thundercats and Transformer Prime feel like they don't need to freakin' be here. And they shouldn't, because we should be relying on new ideas. I have gone on Youtube and Newgrounds enough times to know that there are good animators out there with actual style and new ideas. These are not the things we grew up with, these are things that corporations like to PRETEND that we grew up with.

Edit: TMNT is now an exception. Glad they didn't screw that up.

2.) Enough DC/Marvel: My-fucking-SATAN! How many damn Batman cartoons are we going to make? What can these new series do the 1990s series didn't accomplish? The only one that came close would be Batman the Brave and the Bold, but that show had a couple of down-notes too(need I remind you of how lame Catwoman was?) And Spiderman...UGGGGGGGGGGGGGH! IT'S ALL THE SAME! KID WITH SUPERPOWERS! IT'S-BEEN-DONE! Animating it a damn 3rd time isn't going to make it any better! The only exception to this is Young Justice(though their Joker was horrible).

3.) More GOOD Adult Swim shows: Now, I'm not saying the shows on Adult Swim aren't funny of course not. But good? FUCK NO! Their generally all the same, non-sequitor humor, lots of obligatory violence, etcetera etcetera(I apologize if I spelled that wrong, my spell-check is weird). We need more shows with actual PLOT! And I'm not talking about the stuff Fox throws away, no-one watches American Dad!! Stuff like Boondocks, Oblongs, Mission Hill, all good stuff like that. Sure MI and TO got cancelled and Boondocks takes forever to make(with their animation I don't know why) but it will get more ratings!

I got more but I'm tired. TO BE CONTINUED.

Hello my non-existant fan-base!

Man, lookin' at these posts I've made in High-school sure does bring back memories. To be fair the Dr. Forman Mills guy is actually okay, bit obsessed with his character but okay. Well, I'd like to tell you my non-existant fan-base what this blog is gonna be about. The name "Fishes!2" is based on a blog that for some reason got deleted and the name itself is based on my love of silly humor. Nowadays I'm more analytical in terms of criticism as well as stop saying things like "gay" in my posts. Lookin at these old posts I also seem to look like a psycho...that hadn't changed much. NYA-HA! I consider myself a geek of all trades, be it Marvel,DC,Shueisha, or Kodansha. Expect a lot of silly silly things from this blog.

Guy from Yale on Are you smarter than a 5th grader.

Ok, now this just pisses me off for one reason. A guy with a college education is on the show that I mentioned. Everyone knows that to be a contestant on a Fox show you have to be dumb as that goose with the trumpet(swan actually, it's a book look it up). Just think how Jeff must feel knowing that this guy is actually smart. "Wow, you got every answer right. Of course most of these questions people should know the answer to but they aint supposed to damnit!" And then he orders his lowly payed security guards payed from his rich wallet(redneck my ass) & kills the smart man.Just like how on American Idol they kill anyone with an actual shread of talent's chance of being a pop no-nothing. This is my theory of what's going to happen. I could just watch the show, but I have 2 tests to study for. WIGGY TO THE SHWIGGY!

RAcist, yet funny.

Okay,my friend Tom was playing Final Fantasy VII & there was this boss named Azul. Okay, his name was spanish & his powers were stealing running fast, & jumping really high. Tell me this aint a racist stereotype? Tell me! His skin was even brown! I was laughing my ass off. And he tried covering up his Latino heritage with blue eyes & a Brittish accent. Bull shit! Man, I had no idea those dorks a square-soft were such fuckin racists man. If I ever find a pic I'll put it on here.