QCsucks Weekly Update October 9th
by Kirk
In my quixotic journey for e-fame I have decided that a good addition to Carl’s new blog is the review of the much maligned Questionable Content by Jeph “Jeff Jacks” Jacques. Instead of trying to review the whole shitty mess as a whole, I shall review it week by week, giving out bite sized rants for each comic. So let’s get it started.
Monday!
Oh man! Don’t you love how Jeff Jacks confuses repeated jokes with characterization? Hannalore doesn’t comprehend sexual innuendos! Sven is unemotionable and calculating in relationships! Jeff Jacks is dependent on the last panel joke!
QC is a story comic, the priority of the comic is primarily to advance the story, to show the characters as they move through life. In order for QC to be successful, it does not need to have a joke in every comic. In a good webcomic, humor is just one tool that the artist uses to tell the story. Look at the wonderful Gunnerkrigg Court, which switches from hilarious, to charming, to heartbreaking from chapter to chapter with the lightest of ease. Alternatively, QC just attempts jokes after jokes, most of them forced, most of them bad, and all too often out of place.
Tuesday!
I seriously doubt Hannelore as she has been characterized would ever forget her purse anywhere. But hey, what’s the point of characterization if it gets in the way with the day to day humor. Also I am pretty sure sarcastic replies aren’t enough to stop a person with severe anxieties from having said anxieties. But hey, we are just clearing ground for the eventual Martin/Hanners relationship. And what could be a better couple than the Mary-Sue main character and the fan service crazy girl?
I characterize Martin as the mary sue not because he is particularly like Jeff Jacks himself, as I do not know Jeff Jacks himself well, though a disproportionate amount of the characters are knowledgeable in Jeff’s favorite book Dune, and are too willing to make bad references about it. He is however, way too liked by all the main charactes, and doesn’t do anything legitimately wrong throughout the course of the comic.
Wednesday!
This one annoys me the most because it one is undermined by Jeff Jack’s pathological need for a punch line in every comic. If it were not for the fact that there is a punchline in each of the sven-hanners arc that implies that the date is a joke, then this comic could have been great passable, right now it is just redundant and stupid.
Thursday!
Filler comic with some more poor humor in the last panel. I wonder if Jeff Jacks stays awake at night worrying that someone might not laugh at each comic.
Friday!
Hannelore breaks character to defend Sven, or rather, she is possessed by the high-horse-assassin that Jeff Jacks pulls out every time he needs to stop his characters from being whiny and stuck up. Which means that he doesn’t use this ghost enough for my liking. Person_1 from IRC suggest that the last panel would be funnier if Martin starts talking about someone else’s ass instead of Sven’s. And I have to agree, but god forbid Martin would do anything remotely interesting.
Alright, that is all I have to say this week, if it becomes clear that longer reviews would be appreciated but for now, this is what I give you. You insufferable bastards.
29 comments
Dull. You have no real criticism to make, so you’re deliberately searching for minor flaws.
I particularly enjoyed how you criticized Jeph for including a punchline in each comic. I’m sure if he hadn’t done so, some nitpicker would have complained about that instead.
Next time post something thoughtful, instead of just bashing the subject.
I would like to agree with Chris, in a slightly more polite way. I am sure you have ideas about why QC does not need a punchline in every comic. But you don’t put those ideas here. Why not include your reasons rather than just complaints? For example, Martin is a Mary-Sue. So tell us about why that is a problem for the comic. Longer reviews would indeed be appreciated.
I realize that I wrote this from a position of having discussed the comic with a few people previously, and built up a set of full complaints about the comic as a whole. So I left those out since I have already discussed them to the point that the arguments are now set. Now in this setting those things haven’t been discussed, so to you people, things seem barren and left out. Let me go back and edit them in where I can find them.
I think the punchline in the friday comic is fine the way it is. It’s obvious that Martin (Marty Sue?) is actively screwing with his girlfriend’s irrational hatred of Sven’s success with women.
If Martin started talking about someone else’s ass then that wouldn’t make Dora upset. And everyone knows there are no laughs unless your girlfriend is upset.
AAAARGH BRING THE HATE ALREADY
Weak criticism at best.
Reviewing QC comic-by-comic like this is a bit like trying to review a book or a manga chapter-by-chapter or even page-by-page. It might be interesting in aggregate to present a coherent overarching point, but in the reductionist mode on a week-by-week basis it fails as a form of criticism, getting caught up in minor details and the need to show how the comic is flawed in each individual strip rather than as a whole.
This goes double in a strip that’s published daily, and may take several days to reach a point. There may be some value in stepping back and saying “look at all of the filler in this” but pointing out “this individual strip a filler strip with a weak joke” is a waste of time.
Even if you cover these things in a single coherent longer criticism, it doesn’t make the reductionist approach valid, as we are left with the feeling of “you have made your point, why are you continuing to point them out again and again?” In short: who are you trying to convince through this method? Further, by repeating yourself, aren’t you falling into the same repetitive traps that you are accusing Jeph Jacques of?
The first two images have dodgy links.
I really think QC is a Comic With Problems, but yeah, this criticism doesn’t really engage with them much. There’s so much more to complain about! Although I appreciate that you gesture towards the characteristically piss-weak grasp of characterization (particularly when it comes to the Hannelore character).
I agree with the comments. I find it nice to have both a story arc and a punchline. It’s an interesting constraint for the author to explore and it is part of the specificity of webcomics: you don’t read the story from beginning to end, you read a bit every day.
Also, are you going to do this every week? Because you’ll soon run out of things to say… You cannot hate QC in the same way you hate XKCD. You should state once and for all what you don’t like with QC in a soundly argued essay, and then perhaps add new things if you think there are new flaws/interesting examples illustrating your previous points. Otherwise, it’s going to become quite boring quite soon…
uh it is spelt “Marten” you loser all your points are invalid now
Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have deferred to the post’s spelling wisdom when I made my comment.
However, I stand by calling him Marty Sue.
Just FYI, it wasn’t so much of a character break when Hannelore forgot her purse, but rather because Jeph forgot to draw it.
http://twitter.com/#!/jephjacques/status/26419373316
Quite frankly, I disagree with you on several points.
Firstly, Marten gets so much bullshit it isn’t even funny. For example: Every single goddamn time he talks to a woman who isn’t Dora. Or every second interaction he has with Faye.
Secondly, None of the jokes in this arc have felt too forced. Certainly, you can look at them and say “That’s a very QC joke”, but none of them felt like they cheapened the comics they were in.
Thirdly, how is Hannerlore the “fan service crazy girl”? Sure, she has severe OCD but I can’t recall the last time I saw her used for fanservice, and OCD =/= insanity.
So, basically, shut up.
I didn’t expect actual conversation on my dash comment a few posts ago and i have one more thing to add that i’d like people to consider. I just wanted to clarify that i know Carl uses dashes correctly. I should have originally stated that he uses dashes both correctly and incorrectly. Even then, the correct use of a dash is not exactly set in stone; it somewhat falls into the category of “teacher preference.”
I was merely commenting on the aesthetic of a dash filled paragraph. Many dashes looks kind of odd and it also leads to a jarring mental dialog (at least for me). I would just like to see a greater variety of punctuation from Carl. I’m not sure why i care so much about punctuation as my grammar skills are obviously lacking…
i’ll post again with something relevant after i read the whole page, i promise!
I’ve read every QC and i have to agree, the majority of the 4th panel jokes are forced. QC has the feel of thousands (literally) of 4 panel mini story arcs trying to coalesce into a voltron style mega arc story. QC could be greatly improved by dropping the strict 4th panel joke rule and quickening the pace of the comic a bit. this of course would require considerably more writing, BUT jeph can be a good writer.
After reading some more of the comments, i would like to add that the 4th panel joke really is damn funny a lot of the time. the thing just shouldn’t be a law of physics in the QC world. also QC would best be criticized as a whole with one criticism being “the comic moves slower than a soap opera written in marble with brittle fingernails.” taking the comic panel by panel is a bit too much and doesn’t accomplish anything extra really.
i told you i’d make a relevant post. back to lurking forever now!
Your rage at a piss-poor webcomic is entirely underwhelming.
I think Zino hit a key point when he states that “You cannot hate QC in the same way you hate XKCD.”
QC made its name as a bit of a “slice of life” comic geared at people who were into indie bands. You cannot pick an arbitrary QC comic and automatically know what is going on in the plot, and the final joke may or may not make sense without context (most likely not, given the nature of the humor). What’s more, the claims of “QCSucks” tend to be that “QC has always sucked.”
XKCD is a highly episodic comic that is extremely uneven. You can generally take an arbitrary XKCD comic and whether it makes sense is almost entirely independent of whether you have read the archives. Even when dealing with recurring characters. It is a comic that has moments of brilliance–even in its modern era–and the claim tends to be that “XKCD was once great, but now it is (generally) terrible.”
This distinction is important because it goes to the heart of how one approaches reviewing each of them. XKCD is conducive to reviewing comic-by-comic because each comic usually has only a weak relationship (at most) to any other comics in the series, and because it still has occasional good or great moments, the goal is to show how it has been trending downward. Not how it “sucks” in principle.
QC, on the other hand, almost calls for the opposite approach. While it fluctuates somewhat in quality, the quality is relatively consistent between comics within a given story arch and between story arches. If you don’t like or have criticisms of the style, they are best made as overarching points rather than nitpicking on individual comics, since not every comic can be the embodiment of everything you find wrong with the comic, and the problems are (from what you have said) endemic to the strip as a whole, and not a recent development or even a sign of the comic’s decline.
It really does start to look, as I indicated before, like trying to review a book page-by-page. Many of your criticisms just don’t apply at that level, and the best illustrations of your points may not happen on a given page or even the page needs to have a “beat to fit, paint to match” to fit in with your criticisms. This leaves readers in a position where they are seeing your *weakest* arguments instead of your strongest, and can be left feeling that you have not demonstrated your thesis and are just raging.
So as has been pointed out: It feels like your best mechanism for review is to present a single long critique of QC as a comic and then revisit with a specific followup if an individual comic or story arch provides a particularly good example of something you have already pointed out. Not week-by-week or comic-by-comic.
I admit that I am generally skeptical of comic-by-comic criticism. While it can be occasionally fun to check out XKCDSucks–particularly when there is a really bad XKCD comic–the impression over time is that it gets older than XKCD does and with fewer novel ideas than it says XKCD has. It, frankly, gets tiresome to read just continuing ANGER directed at XKCD comic-after-comic, especially when it starts to look like the author of the criticism is reaching to find fault or showing unbridled anger over essentially a petty criticism or minor detail. We are essentially left with the feeling of “so why do I continue to read this” and then stop reading both of them.
That’s for XKCD, where the thesis of XKCDsucks is likely best demonstrated by comic-by-comic reviews. Let alone QC, which is entirely unconducive to the same style of criticism and where there don’t tend to be a lot of “particularly bad” comics compared to the rest of the QC archives.
I don’t understand why you insist on calling him Jeff Jacks. It isn’t his name. I understand criticism, under the joke of it being constructive (cause let’s face it, Mr. Jacques isn’t going to read this and go “Good idea, Kirk!”, he’s going to say “I’m making money off this shit, Kirk, so I’m pretty sure I’m doing fine!”), but it’s rather disrespectful to call him a mangling of his name. People don’t call me Dillon when they make fun of the shit I do.
Also, complaining about Martin being passive is silly, because he himself has complained about his passivity. He also plays the role of straight man in the comic, back in the days when it was Faye-is-weird, Pintsize-is-silly, the-reader-identifies-with-Martin. He is still the straight man of the comic, and is thus still passive. I don’t really equate that with a Mary-Sue, but that’s a difference of opinion.
That’s true, they don’t call you Dillon…
You see Dildo, you’re wrong about Marten not being a Mary Sue. Let’s compare Marten to the king of Mary Sue himself, Ender Wiggen from Ender’s game. He’s perfect in every way, can never fail, and all of the girls love him.
Now let’s compare this to Marten. You might be saying to yourself, “But wait! Marten fails all of the time. He’s practically defined by his uncanny ability to fail at everything.” Exactly my point. Each failure makes him ever more the adorable clueless indie guy who is oh so irresistible to the ladies. It is in this sense that Marten is the author’s ideal, and is supposed to ours as well.
In fairness to Jeph (but not in fairness to Dildo), this criticism of Marten applies much more strongly to the earlier QC comics and has improved somewhat since then.
Your reviews suck, this site sucks, XKCDsucks sucks ’cause Aloria’s writing now.
Also, KMFDM sucks, but that’s another rant.
And your dog sucks too.
THAT WASN’T ME
I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT ANY DOG COULD SUCK, AS I LOVE DOGS
I SUCK DOGS
….goddammit, this is getting out of fucking hand
“Jeff Jacks” ?
… Seriously? Grow up.
@Arthur
I said it’s immature to call him Jeff Jacks. You respond by being even more childish, and try to make up for it by an argument that pulls in all kinds of random bullshit.
Firstly we can talk about me saying “A passive character isn’t a mary-sue, but maybe that’s a difference of opinion” You say that he’s a mary-sue because he’s so lovable. Are hannilore/marigold/winslow mary-sues because they’re lovable? Because a mary-sue doesn’t mean lovable, it means a writer inserting a perfect version of himself into the work. Martin isn’t perfect. He gets shafted every once in a while, which somehow backs up your bizarre idea that Martin failing constantly is ‘the author’s ideal,’ to which I say “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Please keep this going. I’ve been waiting so long for someone to call Jeph out on his ‘slice of life’ story. Seeing someone else have the same thoughts is comforting/makes me feel not so crazy. I can see, however, that I’m the minority here..
I’m not saying Jeph is a bad guy or that his comic completely stinks. I’m saying his fanbase overall is one of the most annoying/kiss ass. It’s entertaining for me to see all of you flip your shit over someone’s valid commentary/opinions. It’s also entertaining to read the actual commentary.
The difference between this and xkcdsucks is that xkcd sucks. QC is fucking fantastic, and the guy making them certainly has a good attitude when it comes to making the comic, which is basically the exact opposite of xkcd’s shitty “I’m a superior being now laugh at how goddamn clever I am” humor. Feel free to your opinions and whatnot, but I don’t think there are many people who find this all that funny, so it’s probably a waste of time and effort.
Also, it looks like it hasn’t updated in weeks and the comments have died down, so maybe I’m just a dumbass commenting on a dead project. Cool.
this is so bitter!
this and “XKCD sucks” just sound like someone is jealous that someone else has found a job they enjoy that can support them. Rolling out the same criticism of a comic strip after strip gets very old, very quickly.
one of my favourite counter trolls: xkcdsuckssux(dot)blogspot(dot)com
Hannelore does not have severe OCD, because her OCD disappears everytime it is convenient for the punchline. Hannelore has very uneven characterization.
The only character that is mostly consistent is Faye, she’s a jerk all the time. Jeph writes jerkish so well that I suspect he’s a jerk too.
More QCSucks please. I like to see QC bashing and all the fanboy/girl whining in the comments.
QC is terrible. The art is okay. The writing is juvenile, uninspired, insipid, and clichéd.
Leave a Comment