The Bad Webcomics Wiki!

1. Jennifer Reitz still identifies as a woman unless some new development I'm unaware of has come up. For all her mistakes and character flaws, it seems a bit presumptuous to act like we know more about her identity than she does.

2. While the...reviewers of BWW are very ignorant and sometimes downright hateful, there's not much we can do about them except not provide free advertising for them and hope for their eventual fade into obscurity. If they were stalking these content creators IRL or sending death threats, they could be reported to the authorities. As tempting as it would be to take a page from Sonichu and forceably relocate trolls to a commune with no Internet access, that's quite illegal and would only serve to grant them martyr cred.

edited 15th Dec '16 8:03:09 AM by Morgikit

Interesting wall of text...

For the life of me, I can't remember if I've ever entered this threat to help bitch about the site. If I did or didn't...ultimately, aren't they harmless nobodies? It's Yet Another Place Online To Endlessly Bitch About Shit, does it really matter? I think they're full of shit so I don't visit their site and, this topic aside, don't talk about them. Do they have any particular clout or following that isn't an echo chamber of internet trolls?

And even though I disagree with them, there's still Sturgeon's Law—there's going to be a ton of shitty webcomics since there is nothing stopping anybody from publishing stupid shit on the internet.

I have never backed the idea that you can't criticize if you don't create. Everyone can criticize anything, worthwhile criticism will be more thoughtful than "lol it shit, rofl".

Hell, if they offend you that badly then Start Your Own comic review wiki. Nothing is stopping you from doing so, and I'll shed no tears if the Bad Webcomics Wiki dies from other sites providing a higher standard of criticism.

edited 15th Dec '16 8:25:21 AM by Rotpar

Video Game criticism was around long before AVGN became a thing, and Extra Credits certainly hasn't borrowed anything from him besides the idea of talking about video games in internet videos. And Linkara is not comparable to Roger Ebert. I don't get where your idea that web comics criticism isn't properly developed or whatever comes from. If people can read web comics, feel things and analyze why they feel that way then they can criticize web comics in one capacity or another. If you need special language to analyze web comics different from what you'd use to analyze all other kinds of media you can just define a new expression to get your point across. Nevermind the fact that the only parts I can think of where web comics differ from older media, on-site ads and update schedules, are things we've already been able to describe perfectly well for over a decade.

edited 15th Dec '16 4:04:23 PM by Druplesnubb

Well, Neophyte, that was a bunch of wordy anger you put out there.

Ok, one, I don't think any of them has ever said that webcomics were not real comics. In fact, they appear to enjoy webcomics in general, otherwise they wouldn't run across ones they think are bad. Two, very occasionally they do actually say something nice. Not often, but sometimes. Three, yeah, it can be avoided. As long as they're not starting internet shit fights elsewhere why should we go and start "challenging" them? It's a tiny website set up for people who share opinions about things, and so far they don't appear to be doing much harm.

And the reviewer for Grrl Power was kind of right; too much exposition can lead to people glossing over or missing the stuff that is important to the story. Sometimes in art, less is more. And I can understand the confusion about whether or not that organization is a military one; it's fiction I don't think it's common knowledge that the real military can't legally perform police action in America.

In any case, your anger seems disproportionate.

edited 16th Dec '16 2:07:53 AM by AceofSpades

My main criticism of them is that their reviews are often low quality (like, comparable to reading random blog posts) and Bias Steamroller abound on anything furry or they deem "weeb shit".

Also some hints of hypocrisy evidence on the VG Cats page where it's largely complaining about the comics offensive humor where some one is defending the wiki's offensive humor on the talk page.

Just not my cup of tea and proof Sturgeon's Law heavily applies to caustic critics.

Edit: I second the above because being petty and "raiding" such sites only makes them feel vindicated because "lol, we got these people so butthurt". Take the high-road. I like the way someone above me put it that makes them feel like martyrs when you try and silence them.

edited 21st Dec '16 9:23:41 PM by shoboni

Apparently they have a reference for Chick Tracks. Something that only became a "webcomic" at least two decades after it exists physically. I feel they used this as an excuse to count as a bad webcomic to rant about...not that it isn't bad

I agree Chick Tracts is bad (as a Christian I actually find it's hateful theology extremely offensive and borderline blasphemous) but yeah.

It seems like someone pulled a Rules Lawyer with "well, TECHNICALLY it is offered in a web format" as an excuse to have it on the wiki despite not actually being a webcomic.

edited 24th Dec '16 1:27:11 PM by shoboni

The one thing about the wiki that bothers me is how bigoted they can come off as when they deal with subjects outside of their knowledge. These include minorities, LGBT stuff and political issues.

it's ironic because whoever did the Two Kinds review skewed it for what he perceived as racist Unfortunate Implications

There's nothing racist about the comic. The author is half Korean and I've read quite a bit of the comic. They're just trying to find something that isn't there.

From what I understand he wrote partially as a commentary on racism and that's why it's not shy about covering uncomfortable topics like prejudice and slavery.

The comic still isn't racist.

edited 1st Jan '17 4:36:58 PM by pointless233

It really isn't. I went back and read the cringe inducing review (specifically the parts relating to how "racist" the comic was). Some points:

1. The human characters are said to be "white" because they generally have lighter skin tones. I imagine if you showed this reviewer some more stylized older anime, they'd wonder where all the Asians are. There's an article on the concept here, and I'll look it up once I've posted.

2. The reviewer decides that the two non-human races must be analogues of certain real world cultures (Imperial Japan for the Basitin, Darkest Africa for the Keidran). Then they take characteristics of individual members of said races (such as one Basitin soldier's My Master, Right or Wrong attitude, or Flora and Kathrin's No Nudity Taboo), apply them to the corresponding race as a whole (evidence to the contrary be damned), and insist that Fischbach obviously views those real-world cultures in the same manner and is therefore a racist. Give this reviewer credit. When they decide they hate something, they'll work very hard to invent a reason.

3. One glaring problem with painting this comic as racist propaganda by a self-hating Asian: no Always Chaotic Evil race. All of the three races have a wide range of morality. The closest thing to a villainous organization is the Templar, humans who engage in underhanded dealings with the Basitin and enslave the Keidran. By the reviewer's logic, this should make the comic biased against whites more than anyone else (not exactly Stormfront material). Except the Templar barely get a mention, possibly because it doesn't benefit the narrative the review has set up.

So basically what I'm gathering is that the review is pretty much someone pulling complaints straight from their ass as a result of the site's apparent bias against furry/anime webcomics?

edited 2nd Jan '17 6:20:08 PM by shoboni

@Morgikit: I think you're looking for the Mukokuseki trope.

(i apologize for bringing old stuff up in the form of a Wall of Text)

so i decided to read a bit of the wiki because i had nothing better to do today, and i have a few things i cant really help but think:

why does one of the site's so-called reviewers constantly refers to "That's My Sonic's" bastardization of Sonic as a "gay pedo" as though both terms are synonymous? also, what did they mean by "the whole sonic is a gay pedo meme?" although i can agree that the guy who was behind the comic is a monster, but i'll move on before i end up getting off-topic.

here's a fun game: take a drink every time one of the so-called reviewers for "Panty Brigade" uses a (usually sexist) slur (take two when you get to the part where one of them uses a certain 3-letter word starting with "j").

now, it doesnt take anyone with a brain and SOME common sense to know that there's a LOT of things wrong (not to mention skeevy as well) with "Grim Tales From Down Below" and "Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi," but for some reason, the fact that they're crossovers is one of them, according to the so-called reviewers for these webcomics.

... no offense, but could the so-called reviewer for "Gamer Chicks" not go through at least 2 sentences without outright insulting (not to mention going so far as to making threats to) the creator of the comic like a petty, smug Internet Tough Guy?

the so-called reviewer for "Niels" refers to this as "covert pro-gay propaganda," and get this: its due to the fact that there's rape used for both comedic and fanservice purposes... yeah, TOTALLY not similar to the very rhetoric that fundies, social conservatives, and other homophobic types use to slander gay people (and queer people in general) as rapists, not at all yet said reviewer talks about how its fetishizing queer people in general as though they suddenly care about gay rights. i'm going to assume that they're one of those straight male atheists who pretend to care about queer people so they can use them to bash christians one minute only to throw them under the bus the next for the sake of some shitty joke that they may or may not have ripped off from south park and unironically think jerking off to lesbian porn makes them Not Homophobic™ yet, at the same time, accuse gay men of being creepy perverts.

now, i would agree with the legit parts of the reviews of "Sinfest," "Shortpacked," "Strong Female Protagonist," and "Assigned Male" had the so-called reviewers for those four hadn't delved into indignant-sounding rants about Those Evil, Evil, Evil SJWs™ at every given chance.

and... the less said about how they seem to have it in for the likes of viziepop and you-know-who, the better.

yeah, im really glad i got out of that "pseudo-intellectual internet cynic" crowd a long time ago. bottom line, accentuating the negative isn't real criticism.

edited 5th Jan '17 5:06:48 PM by I-Teleported-Bread

The wiki motto is "improving our media with hate." Last time I checked, hating on something won't make it better.

edited 8th Jan '17 7:32:51 PM by pointless233

There's this weird thing where even when reviewing something THAT IS truly of poor quality, they'll end-up attacking it for the wrong reasons.

Also hypocrisy abound because they love to keep reviews accusing people of of being bigots/sexists up despite some of the content of their articles.

edited 21st Jan '17 4:11:31 PM by shoboni

Why is this thread still around? Nobody here likes the BWCW. We're not supposed to have complaining threads here.

It's really not complaining because most of us are giving constructive criticism of the site and some even giving in-depth analysis of why it falls flat.

All were doing is pointing out how flawed the wiki is. It's not really complaining.

Dude, you just necro'd a month old thread just to repeat what the previous poster already said but with different words.

Maybe this thread should come to a conclusion. I don't think much more can be said about the site than has already been said. And while constructive criticism is by no means a bad thing, in my experience they seem like the kind of people who would take any negative reaction as proof that they're in the right. There's a lot of that going around, on and off the Internet.