Shredded Moose (no longer lost)

Apparently somebody saved it way back when, and the shared a partial archive on the world's most appropriately named tumblr.

After all the infamy, I was expected a little more. The art's nice, the jokes are lame attempts at mid 00's "edginess." I read a little of it way back in the day, and it didn't really strike me as anything special, but now that it's become the elusive unicorn of terrible webcomics, I figure it's worth a little discussion.

Having read quite a bit of it back when it was running, I never really got the infamy myself. Yes, it's bad, and juvenile, and that's it, really. I think it's the decent-if-derivative art that kills it for me, if that makes any sense- it pushes the comic out of So Bad Its Horrible into just generically bad. It's not Dominic Deegan, with loads of squandered potential, or Pastel Defender Heliotrope with "what is this I don't even," or Single Asian Female with truly unpleasant grown-up nastiness to it, it's just nothing special in the bad way.

i.imgur.com/ u2kEr1t.jpg

The latest page.

edited 31st Oct '13 8:08:58 PM by Gvzbgul

I've read through it a bit just now. I never got the chance to read Shredded Moose back before it got lost. I really don't get why it's so infamous; it just seems like a generic, lame webcomic as written by a 13 year old with too much time and no talent. Maybe back when it first came out it was unique and edgey but nowadays it's overshadowed by other stuff. Maybe it's something I'm just not seeing, I mean I just saw some dumbass argument about it on Tumblr so clearly it's "legacy" still holds out.

edited 16th Feb '14 1:10:30 PM by chopshop

From the description, it sounds like it went through what we used to call First and Ten syndrome, a failed case at Cerebus Syndrome which ruins everything the work originally had going for it and alienates its old audience. But I don't intend to read through the whole thing to find out.

Maybe there was also bad behavior on the author's part, like what got Ctrl+Alt+Del most of its flak?

Oh, I remember this.

For one, back when John Solomon was active, he was the one who really led the charge against its art. I don't think it was quite as egregious as he did, but I do have to lean towards saying it's bad art (I believe the more polite version of what he said was the biggest artistic crime was "banana breasts").

For another, for webcomics as a whole, you generally didn't see that combination of puerility and consistency back when it was produced - most artists who went down the "13-year old who got booted from Xbox Live for being too much of an asshole" path gave up pretty damn fast. Shredded Moose, for better or for worse, was much more consistent than anything else in its vein.

Also, there's the point that some of the others had moments to offend, I think the fact that there was never anything redeeming about Shredded Moose at all. There were moments when you could point to Dominic Deegan and say that there was some good stuff, even if you were of the opinion that it wasted its potential. Same with Pastel Defender Heliotrope. At this point, I think the kindest thing anyone ever says about Shredded Moose is Damning With Faint Praise material, like "It wasn't as offensive as A Serbian Film," or "At least it didn't summon Zalgo."

Finally, some of it is just the Internet echo chamber effect. Shredded Moose was easily the comic that John Solomon hated most in his seminal webcomics blog, "Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad." And there were plenty of fans of said blog, who parroted the opinion. It just kind of ballooned until it the stories became tall tales.

All that said, I remember looking in curiosity at it back when it still ran. It was awful and offensive, I thought that all of Solomon's criticisms were on point, and I decided to stick with my usual routine.

I'm very curious what you folks think of the female protagonist in Shredded Moose, the purple clad, red haired feminist, Monique. Considering how many people believe the authors of SM were misogynistic fratboys, what is your opinion on her depiction when she reappears in mid 2008?

There are some gaps in the archive so I will say this, the storyline with Monique starts off blackmailing Brew into environmental activism all for an unknown reason that is later revealed in one of the archived strips.

Later on, Brew ends up getting captured by the Big Bad and Monique ends up saving both him and her daughter by what means I'm not quite sure of.

Other than that Monique's story should be coherent to those reading it.

Don't let her debut comic deter you because she went from being a Straw Feminist to becoming the female lead. But isen't the straw argument strangely reasonable? Almost like they saw their comic for what it was but were too bashful to admit it. This is pure conjecture however. Draw your own conclusions.

edited 27th Feb '14 7:09:35 PM by BluntTime

Anyone interested can add their memories and tropes of Shredded Moose here. I worked my butt off rewriting this page that I worked my butt off to write in the fist place, so hopefully its acceptable to you guys.

Not only did I want to write a quality (I hope) article worthy of inclusion on TV Tropes but to show everyone what they don't know about Shredded Moose, the added development; both in characters and storylines the authors gave to it in response to the criticism towards the comic. Unfortunately, most people never cared or even acknowledged their efforts to shift Shredded Moose into a more self aware, progressive direction.

• ShreddedMoose

edited 28th Feb '14 7:15:24 PM by BluntTime

Here's my half complete archive if anyone's interested in browsing the strips. http://www.mediafire.com/download/5tjtxecjtpldd6l/Shredded+Moose+2007-09.zip

I really want to know if anyone can tell if this comic was an over-the-top parody on CAD and Penny Arcade what with one of the most overwrought drama arcs that launches in the middle of some of the most poorly video game/sex jokes of all time. Seriously, the comic just decays into complete insanity and chaos but there's elements of tongue and cheek that still poke through

Well I read one of the recent ones with sexist/racist depictions of Anita Sarkeesian and Tatsuya Ishida, and that put me off it forever. May have been "satire", but that didn't make it not bad.

No that was a fake comic made by a sexist tumblr called "shittywebcomics" which is more about reblogging misognyistic crap and sperging about anime than discussion of actual webcomics. Shredded Moose ended in 2009 with Brew making recompense with the few remaining women in his life for his horrible behavior