I was checking in on Questionable Content and randomly decided to scroll down the page a little. I usually don’t because the site doesn’t work on my phone very well. I know how hard it can be to fix stuff like that though. Anyway, he’s still got the old links to other webcomics down at the bottom. I decided to see if Weregeek still existed anymore, or if it ended, or what. Without verifying anything I guess it hasn’t updated since 2022. (If anything I say here is incorrect I apologize to anyone who cares.) Apparently in 2015 they did a Kickstarter and then didn’t actually complete it. The comments make it seem like the site is basically abandoned and the readers are either mad, worried, sad, or some combination of feelings. I never really follower Weregeek, I was just aware of it and knew that they were doing better than I was. At least as far as I could tell. I wonder if any of my readers know the full tale of what happened there. I haven’t kept up with the webcomic “community” so I don’t really know who does things anymore. QC is the only webcomic I still read regularly, as I’ve said before. The ones I used to like outside of that either just stopped, or veered heavily into promoting some particular worldview that ruined the story. I’ve never really recovered from that time period as far as this part of my life is concerned. I never felt like I was part of a webcomic community. Which is why I always put community in quotations. Most things that people tend to describe as communities are just cliques that have taken it upon themselves to represent these so called communities. I certainly wouldn’t want some other creator speaking on my behalf in almost any situation. My views and opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this “community”.
I was so into webcomics for a long time. Even back when I was still working retail I was reading QC, Penny Arcade, Bob & George, The final fantasy sprite comic I forgot the name of, PVP, and like several others. When I actually started making them and interacting with some of those creators it slowly dawned on me that “some of these guys really suck…” It’s just like any loose grouping of humans. Some are cool and some are not so cool. Over time being loosely affiliated with webcomics ruined them for me. I suspect it’s like that for every profession. The best doctors probably talk shit about each other behind their backs the same way they do at a Burger King. It’s still sad though. I liked being able to like things.

Anyway, I guess that’s enough of my nonsense for today. Keep it real lemon peel. Come back on Wendesday. I demand it!

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“The final fantasy sprite comic I forgot the name of”

You must be referring to 8-bit Theater.

Which was awesome. Didn’t like the guy’s work after that, however.

I’ll vouch for Atomic Robo, that was some damn good stuff.

I enjoyed 8-bit theatre quite a bit as a teen, but I gotta admit as a reread 15 or so years later… it really does not land nearly as well as it did. Such is life.

i think weregeek tried to push a certain worldview and ran out of inspiration (they went abit heavy on the polycule and other stuff) but i am not 100% sure as i just read it wasnt really personally involved or anything

Then when some of the readership rebelled against the new direction, wanting it to go back to where the hell it was, they were shouted down as bigots. That REALLY didn’t help.

Throw in those who were torqued about the Sarah / Mark concept now basically dead in the water–plus that handful who were convinced that Mark deserved the cosmic abuse somehow–and that only threw further blood in the water.

I got mad at penny arcade after they ghosted me on a project, but I guess I can’t complain since I was a novice and stuff needed to get done. I still read QC, and Flipside, and Dominic Deegan is updating again, but sometimes the stories truly come to a close, or else go off the deep end so far I don’t pick it up again.

For me, Penny Arcade was interesting because I slowly realized that although they talked about video games, Mike only ever cared about the art, and Jerry was so jaded he would always focus on some weird thing, like a game could suck but if it had an interesting UI, he’d plug it just for that. They were really the first time I recognized that alot of critics or pro-gamers or whatever are so jaded, from playing so many games as a full-time job, that they don’t care about the things regular people care about (at least, not in the same proportions). I wouldn’t waste $60 and a week of my limited free time just to experience a trash game with cool art design, but Mike would spend a day on it. I didn’t hate them for it or anything, I just accepted that they are fairly worthless for real recommendations or normal insights and stopped bothering to follow them (as opposed to Scott at PVP, who just stopped playing games). Giving Ben Kuchera a job was a mistake too; I didn’t even know who he was, but reading his articles was painful.

I spent 15 years as a movie reviewer in a lot of different places. And this can happen. I once reviewed five Ulli Lommel movies in a row, and then publicly declared I would never touch anything with that man’s name on it EVER AGAIN. The upside, though, was that it made mainstream movies a lot better because I had truly seen the bottom of the barrel.

Dominic Deegam? I thought it was done years ago?

It was for quite awhile as the author went on to write on a new project (where he didn’t have to draw too), called “Star Power” which ran from 2013-2020. After that concluded he restarted DD with a sequel set in the future.

I read a pile of webcomics and have any number of others bookmarked in various stages of their archives.

That said, I re-read this one on a more-than-occasional basis.

And that makes Carol’s callback to the Grand Hotel Ghost Hunt extra cool.

I read QC, Something Positive(updates rarely), Girls With Slingshots, Dumbing of age, Penny Arcade, Girl Genius, Ctrl Alt Del, Love Not Found, Dominic Deegan, and a real guilty silly pleasure Oglaf once a week to be shocked and titillated…

But Between Failures always feels like home.

Of the hundreds of links still saved in my favorites, you just named the actual like daily patrol I did online for years, I can’t even remember at what point I dropped most of them. Questionable Content is probably the only one I don’t remember ever leaving on the backburner for a while.

“Over time being loosely affiliated with webcomics ruined them for me. I suspect it’s like that for every profession. The best doctors probably talk shit about each other behind their backs the same way they do at a Burger King. It’s still sad though. I liked being able to like things.”

This is why I’m glad I’m able to separate a creator from the work they do. Why would I want to ruin my enjoyment of things just because its creator happens to be a dick or some other somesuch? If I’m concerned about supporting them, I can pirate. I can adblock. I can vote with my wallet and not condemn a work I otherwise enjoy. Of course, this mindset only applies if what I like about a work doesn’t get driven into the ground by author diatribes, but I’ve found that happens less often than people think. Especially since the types of authors who fall into that trap tend to not produce stuff I would like in the first place.

It’s been said here and elsewhere that you should never meet your heros.

I’m still here because I like the characters and their path through everyday life. If I quit following a comic it is usually because it has gone on forever hiatus or the writer just ran out of story. There is one in particular that had a couple of truly epic story arcs but than just kind of ran out of steam. The writer has introduced a new generation of characters but it just hasn’t been the same.

And yeah, doctors totally talk shit about each other. Psychiatrists are the worst.

There’s only 4 webcomics I read anymore; this (obviously,) QC, misfile, and ennui go.
This and ennui are my favorites cause they really make you think.
I do, however, read a metric butt ton of webtoons…

Questionable Content, Grrl Power, and a few others I read on the reg, but one I do wish finds some success is actually Daughter of the Lillies. Poor artist has had some rough times with her employment, but the story is very well drawn and colored with deep resonating drama (at least for me).

Sad truth seems to be that so many artists I liked went by the wayside when Covid struck, a fair number without a word or update. I doubt that they all wound up kicking the bucket, but I do believe a good majority just didn’t find that the world gave them the same inspiration anymore to draw, or that their lives changed so much they couldn’t just upload something for free, needing patreons and merch just to stay afloat. Sad really, how much we take our daily vices for granted sometimes.

One webcomic I like, well, the artist was taking care of her grandmother when she passes, then a few months later her sister died, while the comic was focused on a character having a panic attack from trauma when he lost all his friends and family during a robot attack (so some nice relaxing pages to write in the aftermath of her situation).

Yeah, it was some sketches for a bit, then slooooow working on pages. Started back in on the story after 3 years.

While I’ve been caught off guard by some reader entitlement I didn’t expect, I don’t begrudge anyone the need to “nope, I gotta step back from this, sorry.”

That sounded very much like a comic I used to read, so I checked on it and found it *has* started back up again. Looks like I’ll have to re-read a lot of it to figure out what’s going on now, though. Thanks!

I used to read QC, but I felt like they definitely started pushing a world view pretty heavily, and reading Jacques’ blogs and twitter posts definitely made it hard to ignore the worldview pushing I saw creep into the comic. I basically read Between Failures, Grrl power, and girl genius, and that’s about it these days. There are also webcomics I stopped reading and I just don’t know why, I guess I just stopped going to them as a ritual and never really picked it back up. This has actually happened with Girl Genius, I just actually plan to get back into it.

One I like just because it doesn’t push any agenda is Freefall. It’s just very funny. I also like that while the “rule of funny” comes first, the science is surprisingly accurate for a comic.

El Goonish Shive is probably the oldest I read, and still going strong. Been reading since high school
QC, while.. frustrating sometimes if you care about conclusions, still reading. DMFA is kinda sporadic, but worth checking back once in a while. Flipside, still good. Skin Deep, probably up there in age but I didn’t find it until a few years ago. Great art and story. Twokinds, took a hiatus for a couple years but they came back and going strong. Dominic Deegan I need to catch up on, one of my faves back in the day.

I think my bookmark list was 120+ comics once upon a time, but many dropped off after a few years. Which tells me college is not a great time to start a second job like regular comics, lol. Unless you’re very good at time management I guess.

Questionable Content, PvP, Penny Arcade, Least I Could Do and LFG, VG Cats, 8-Bit Theatre, Dominic Deegan, xkcd, Cyanide and Happiness; the list goes on and on and has been whittled and passed through a number of culling cycles over the years but Between Failures sticks in my bookmarks as a permanent mark.

2711 The Knowing.

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