A little Zero Punctuation in your webcomics.
I found this ZP rant profoundly amusing. Not because of it’s subject matter, or because it was funny (as it was pretty meh) but actually because the guy behind ZP did a webcomic.
Most of the rant is aimed squarely at Control Alt Delete, so, pretty par for the course as far as webcomic rants go. The problem is, this is all stuff we’ve heard before. For a guy who is popular for complaining in an entertaining way, he didn’t find anything funny to complain about when it comes to gaming comics.
The whole impression I got “hurr hurr gaming comics, game references, sprites, walls of text”. He really didn’t even bother criticizing Penny-Arcade, which disappointed me. Granted, Penny-Arcade is pretty well polished, but there are some flaws in there that should be addressed in all fairness. I liked the little dig about Comic Genesis, as that’s where his comic is archived (which interestingly features himself as a self-insert. For shame, Mr. Croshaw). He also has a few other gems, and I use the term ‘gems’ loosely. A sprite comic… really?
Oh, and as always, drama and ZP go hand in hand, check out the forums for your dose for the week.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I agree with most of his findings here, I mean everyone thinks they can just do this and not have any skills or training to do it right. if your wondering why that the industry is hard to get into, its reasons like this, every frigging noob thinks they are so talented cus there mommies always said they weres special, not everyone is cut out for art and or humor , that’s why the best way to learn is to stay in school and learn actual skills to hone so called talent in order to present it well… if you want to demonstrate your talent , back it up dammit.
He makes great points, i have no sympathy for anyone who just thinks that they can make a comic outta thin air based on what is the next big game release…
you know its true…
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Why would he criticize Penny Arcade? Out of the video game webcomic genre, it’s actually pretty decent (and more clever than several of its contemporaries). I also have this weird feeling that Yahtzee himself enjoys Penny Arcade.
You have to admit, though… the whole miscarriage storyline in CAD was pretty atrocious.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I’m sure some of those digs were also at himself. He’s a very harsh critic but never falls into being hypocritical about it. He makes fun of himself as much as he does the industries he rants about. He’s never hidden the links to his site, which his terrible webcomics have been featured for ages. In fact he redirected his end of video links to go straight there.
Fairly, these TERRIBLE (can’t emphasize that enough) comics were created when he was younger and before becoming popular. So he can look back in shame at them and can lash out at people who do the same because they don’t know any better.
And what’s wrong with Penny Arcade?
July 11th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Nothing is WRONG with Penny-Arcade, per se, but there are things it can be dinged on, such as hit or miss comics and frequent copy-pasting.
I still enjoy it and find it to be a great comic though, but it’s one of those sacred cows that isn’t as perfect as most people would lead you to believe.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:17 am
The only problem I have with Penny Arcade is the times where the comic doesn’t make any sense unless I read Tycho’s fifteen paragraph rambling. Which is funny, because I thought one of the rules to humor is a joke isn’t funny if you have to explain it.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:30 am
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