Discussion Horrible / Webcomics

Don't link to the site itself, dude. The person who made it is literally 14. I think that An Toons is a better fit, because he's been widely mocked and criticized and has a near-non existent fanbase unlike other nazi comics and doesn't have people sharing his comics without knowing what they are.

Wait, so why does being young disqualify their work from being Horrible? Or am I missing the point?

I don't think they're important enough, is the problem.

A kid or teenager creating a bad work is not particularly noteworthy because that's the expected outcome when someone young decides to create something.^note Exception: If a young creator's work is professionally published, you'd expect it to pass a certain quality standard. Also, it's a bit mean to take a work by a random young amateur and slap it on the wall of shame alongside terrible-yet-professionally-published works by creators who genuinely should have known better.

Also requested.

Stonetoss probably actually is a nazi, but the "has an unironic fanbase" note is technically enough to keep him off the page in a similar vein to the arguments around Assigned Male a few years back. There's also the question of his "less mask-off" comics getting shared around by people who haven't done their research on the author.

Yeah, Stonetoss does have a legitimate fanbase, as even his non-political comics can sometimes make the rounds when people don't know who he is. Most people who hate his comics hate them for being incredibly offensive, which isn't enough for SBIH.

It should be edited to be less hateful. Chris-chan is a very sad and unstable person who needs our understanding and not disgust.

Never heard of the comic, but offensive rhetoric alone isn't enough to qualify. Sucky as it is for transphobes to have a platform, if it has other good-to-average qualities (like art style or story) and a sizable fandom, then it can't technically qualify as unanimously horrible. If even its target audience finds problems on it then it may qualify.

Also not sure what our stance is on comics that are only considered bad after a certain point of its run.

Sinfest was good at one point so I don't think it will qualify.

ETA: Also removed Chaos Diamonds 3, which seemed too obscure to be on here anyway.

ETA 2: Also removed Natty Comics since it was taken down too.

I've never been much of a fan of the idea that being on one page automatically precludes it from being on the other. Especially when it seems it's a small, but passionate minority on one side or the other. I have no problem with a notation that "Some find it So Bad Its Horrible / So Bad, It's Good."

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. I mean, pretty much all entries will have someone who likes it, so if that precludes something from being on this list, the So Bad Its Horrible pages would be nearly empty. I, for instance, find Battlefield Earth to be So Bad, It's Good, but I have no problem with it being listed here. Adding the suggested notation and allowing them to exist on both pages seems wise.

Wrong place.

Also, comics such as So You're a Cartoonist and I Will Survive by Borba are frankly awful and are hated by almost everyone. Don't know why they aren't here.

US Angel Corps is undeniably horrible, but this site doesn't allow links to anything pornographic. And stop it with the thread-necroing.

Is it possible to have an entry that doesn't link to it?

I Will Survive is more So Bad, It's Good/ Narm because of how memetic it is. Plus the art admittedly isn't bad.

And regarding the issue with NSFW comics...we do still have a hentai comic listed on the page, albeit without a link...

As far as So You Think You're A Cartoonist is concerned, most of the hate towards it has more to do with the artist than the art, so it doesn't really count.

Both have many fans, so it doesn't count. Also, it wpuld need a clear motivation to include them here.

Same reason US Angel Corps was removed and why The Office Bitch will never be here. As awful as they are, they are porn and porn is insta delete here.

US Angel Corps was removed because it blatantly disregarded the first rule for submission. As offensive as its content might be, it HAS a fanbase.

Also, porn is perfectly acceptable here or anywhere else, as seen by the Porn with Plot trope. Hell, it might even be more acceptable here, as the standards are less strict on Darth Wiki and Sugar Wiki pages. If you read 5P correcly you should have noticed that only porn without plot and lolicon works aren't permitted here.

I also have stopped caring for Kit 'n Kay Boodle, as it's more So Okay, It's Average than anything else.

When you think about, many of the comics cited do have a fanbase, even if it's small, such as Billy The Herectic being popular with neo-nazis. Also, outside of the art, it has no qualities to speak of, having no plot or themes. Most of people who read it panned it, so I think it deserves an entry.

As How to Create a Work's Page says: if you've published a tropable work, you're allowed to create a page for it. However, you are not allowed to create or add items to a YMMV subpage or related subpages, and you may not review your own work or add recommendations for your own work.

Trash it then

I checked the YMMV page and there's a few problems with that one accounting. The character, Shane is very popular among the less extreme audience. It's agreed that the artstyle is also rather decent. I personally could see this work as a So Bad, It's Good sorta drivel. That combined with the extreme vegan fanbase (which appears to be genuine) makes this one not count. I mean it's not like Billy The Heretic and the neo-nazis.

"The character, Shane is very popular among the less extreme audience."

For one: It's Shawn, not Shane. And two: The Emoji Movie, Happily N'Ever After, How I Became Yours, and even Sonichu have Ensemble Dark Horse characters liked by the detractors, so this is a weak argument.

"It's agreed that the artstyle is also rather decent."

Even weaker. Take a look around the "Horrible" section and see how many other works listed have decent art. And honestly, I'd put it around "Pre-Reboot Ctrl-Alt-Del" at best.

"I personally could see this work as a So Bad Its Good sorta drivel."

Being in one section does not preclude being in the other.

"I mean it's not like Billy The Heretic and the neo-nazis."

Yeah? How so? Sorantheman's tirade about Billy The Heretic's "Fans" in the earlier discussions could easily apply to Vegan Artbook as well.

"The Emoji Movie, Happily N'Ever After, How I Became Yours, and even Sonichu have Ensemble Darkhorse characters liked by the detractors, so this is a weak argument."

I agree. One halfway decent minor character does not redeem an otherwise awful work. It's dubious that Shawn and Smiler even count as Ensemble Darkhorses because they do play major roles in their respective works. I also suspect many of their fans only like them because they oppose the unlikable heroes. Similarly, good visuals do not make an otherwise awful work tolerable (see: The Emoji Movie again).

"Being in one section [Horrible] does not preclude being in the other [So Bad It's Good]."

Actually, DarthWiki.So Bad Its Horrible describes Horrible works like this (emphasis mine): "The work is absolutely terrible, and not just because of unfortunate or otherwise offensive content. No past or present positive opinions can be found about the work, nor does it contain Guilty Pleasures or anything So Bad, It's Good. Nobody who watches it likes it. There's not even a cult following, for it is eschewed even by fans of the franchise it may be based on."

With that said, the So Bad, It's Good page requires consensus that the work's badness makes it enjoyable. There doesn't seem to be a lot of people who think Vegan Artbook is so bad it's fun to read.

"That combined with the extreme vegan fanbase (which appears to be genuine) makes this one not count."

I agree with this one. The artist published books of the comics, and they seemed to sell (Vegan Artbook Hot apparently sold out). I highly doubt many detractors bought it for the Bile Fascination — why pay for comics you hate if you can just read them online for free anyway? Even if only a small minority of vegans like the comic, it still appeals to a niche, which disqualifies it from being Horrible.

I'm just gonna copypaste JHM's comment at the end of the other thread, because for some reason we have three threads about this one subject:

"Memo to the folks who want this here because "horrible is horrible" or whatever: Personally thinking something is dreadful does not mean it qualifies for this page. "What is required here is a negative critical consensus and a complete lack of a visible fanbase. Truly Horrible works, by the site's definition, are actually very, very rare, and Assigned Male, love it or hate it, does not qualify. Seriously, Myr went a bit overboard with the rhetoric here, but he has some good points. I mean, there are folks here essentially arguing against established fact because they take issue with the content of the comic or its tone for whatever reason, and that's not the point of this page. Or any TVT page, really."

By that logic, Billy the Heretic shouldn't be on this list either. Stormfront loves it. IS that not a visible fanbase?

From the page itself, it states it needs to fail to appeal even to the niche audience it's shooting for. I've never seen a trans person (excluding the other) who had a positive opinion on the comic. I know one who abhors it.

Now I understand what you're saying, and maybe Assigned Male shouldn't be here. But the rules we're applying to this we don't seem to be applying to Billy the Heretic.

If Billy the Heretic(which despite repeated comparisons, is so much more abhorrent than AM that a comparison is absurd) needs to get out on a technicality, so be it. I will say that AM does have fans in and out of the community.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/assigned-male-comic-series/http://www.gaycentralvalleyblog.com/2015/03/interview-with-assigned-male-creator.htmlhttp://adastracomix.com/2015/03/23/19-comic-characters-who-embody-womens-liberation/

Here is a positive article about it on i100, run by The Independent, a major newspaper in the UK: http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-web-comic-about-being-trans-is-as-funny-as-it-is-moving--e1BYpa7djg

Both are political comics with visible fanbases, so content aside, they can be compared.

One of those is a dead link and the other is a small article that actually has a transwoman and the comments calling out Assigned Male.

Not exactly a very visible fanbase. Compare to the MULTIPLE people who enjoyed Billy the Heretic on stormfront and criticized Cracked for calling it bad: https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t629071-2/

And of course, once again, I'm not saying Assigned Male is as hateful as BTH, but when one has more obvious fans than the other, and yet we're letting the one with more obvious fans stay up, it kind of shows a bias.

EDIT: I see it's actually three links you forgot to put spaces between. My mistake.

Well, one of these was written by the author themselves and quite frankly, seems to be put there as an ad for the webcomics more than actual praise.

Another is an interview with the author, and as such I don't think it counts as individual praise itself.

The third I WILL count though, since it's a list article of a variety of characters without direct involvement from Sophie.

... I found the first comment in the very last article pretty hilarious.

The Independent one?

I'll say it again: If Billy the Heretic(which despite repeated comparisons, is so much more abhorrent than AM that a comparison is absurd) needs to get out on a technicality, so be it.

You're kind of dancing around the argument here. You're calling the entire reason Assigned Male isn't on the list and your vehement defense tactic for it a "technicality" when applied to something else. And once again, just because it's more abhorrent doesn't mean both still don't boil down to "pretty low quality web comics people will defend because it pushes their agenda."

So can you reach into their minds and telepathically tell that they don't "really" like it?

The thing about Billy the Heretic is that not only is it only even vaguely popular with a tiny minority even of racist idiots, but it's been panned by multiple sources for having incredibly lousy art and not even bothering to tell actual coherent jokes, even racist jokes, much of the time. Even if you have a Nazi agenda, it's just not a good comic, at all, and one suspects that those "defending" it only did so to troll Cracked for being offended at its loathsome content.

Assigned Male, while not my cup of tea, has a pretty significant following on and off Tumblr, and has garnered a decent amount of praise and referrals elsewhere. It also has solid art and demonstrates some actual understanding of its subject matter. Dismissing this because you don't know anyone who likes it is like me saying Dominic Deegan is Horrible because I don't know anyone who actually likes it. Which is absurd, you would admit.

There are left-wing comics on here, and with good reason. Nobody is really sure if Minimum Security's author is a troll, but some of her work is astoundingly awful on multiple levels. Were it not for its politics, Billy the Heretic wouldn't be much better. And there's stuff on here which doesn't have a political bent at all.

The only reason I can see Assigned Male being here is one of personal distaste from people who find what it's preaching—and don't get me wrong, it's one hell of a preachy comic—inherently morally repugnant on some level. I can see finding it bad, sure, but Horrible is a special designation.

And hey, if you think Billy the Heretic doesn't meet our standards, campaign for it to be removed! If it has a legitimate fanbase that isn't just trying to fuck with people or humouring a personal friend, then it probably shouldn't be here.

I would say it's closer to a Chick Tract than anything: it presents a very one-sided view of a particular issue with strawman characters delivering simplistic arguments for the protagonist to knock down with their wise words. It even uses that obnoxious "behold as I speak wisdom" face that Chick was fond of (mouth open, eyes mostly or completely closed, serene expression).

It's largely based on conflating being trans with gender politics, but these are not synonymous: it's entirely possible to be a conservative transsexual who rejects alternative gender definitions and sees being trans as a personal issue with nothing society needs to change except for accepting that someone can be "born in the wrong body" (something the comic explicitly rejects). These are the trans people who don't like the comic (well, them and the obnoxious "gatekeeper" types who say you need to have bottom surgery or you're not "real"). In addition it's woefully unrealistic in how it handles characters: not just in how inauthentic the main character's dialog is (everything is childishly simplified, but she talks like a disaffected 35-year-old), but that if you did half the things this kid does in real life you would get fucking killed outside of the bluest of blue states.

She also brings up some truly bizarre ideas like that not wanting to date a trans person is automatically transphobic, which suggests she thinks sexuality is a choice. Overall she's very inconsistent with her beliefs, like saying clothes have no gender but having her character object to wearing clothes associated with a particular gender.

The art is ugly and inconsistent, and the "reviews" cited above: two are listicles, one is an interview, and the Independent one isn't a review. That doesn't really prove there's any kind of fandom for it at all, nevermind a positive one.

That said, no real proof has been shown of a negative consensus either, probably because the comic is fairly obscure.

Part of the problem with trying to establish a positive fanbase for this work is not how obscure it is, but how esoteric it is. It's full of in-jokes, in-references, and things which left-leaning trans people often regard as self-evident truths but which the general population tends to be less willing or able to accept. Trans Facebook, and in particular European Trans Facebook, tends to love Assigned Male. I say this from personal experience.

The trouble with the European Trans Community - on and off Facebook - is that it has two sides: the side it shows to the public, which is often activist-led or NGO-led and very on-message; and the internal discourse of memes and banter which few outsiders ever see. Assigned Male is a part of that internal discourse.

The bullet point obviously needs to go, but the example itself seems fine. Having gone through five pages of Lightbringer, I'd say it qualifies, as I really don't want to go through any more.

I readded it not because of any familiarity with the comic but because it was initially removed with an edit summary that didn't indicate any actual problems with the entry, just irritation at the person who added it for failing to add it in alphabetical order.

I read about 20 pages before getting bored, but having read it I don't think it's bad enough to qualify. Bad, certainly, but there's nothing in it that's disgusting/offensive on the level of most of the comics listed. The fact that a Caustic Critic of webcomics wrote such a bad webcomic does add a layer of awfulness to it, but since we're supposed to stay away from real person bashing I don't think that can be used as a reason to add it.

Being disgusting/offensive really doesn't have anything to do with it. The first bullet point is fine on its own; it says why it's bad, puts its badness in perspective by comparing it to other bad comics, and... well, I personally can't see anyone actually defending this comic. And there's no mention about Linkara there, so that's not an issue.

I'm going to restore it, unless Freezer has any more points. The complaint "it's about Linkara not the comic" is nonsensical in regards to the first point, and the rest of the writeup explains why it's bad. I don't get this second pull.

I'm going to add more about the writing, because otherwise entry seems a bit too thin. Hopefully people will expand on it more.

Edit: Before I do that - As much as I personally think that the comic is awful (and loathe Linkara's other work), looking at the YMMV page, there are Growing the Beard, So Bad, It's Good and Love It or Hate It entries (though rather unconvincing ones), which would generally keep something off SBIH. I also found a bunch of fanart, so it might actually have enough of a fanbase (even if it's mostly sycophantic Linkara fans). Combine it with the fact that the lack of any detail in the writing would be enough to get other entries pulled and I'd say there's actually a fairly strong case for it's removal.

I'd personally love to keep this here, but I'd rather have some consistency and avoid setting bad precedents.

Good points, but those entries on its YMMV page are really poorly done (SBIG and LIOHI are basically zero context, and Growing the Beard doesn't even make sense... how can something "leap-frog in quality"? That's actually nonsense).

I have no opinion on Linkara so I figured I'd hop ahead and see if issue 8 is any better... I'll say this, it's... better than the trainwreck that is the first issue, but still godawful. So it's less "Growing the Beard" and more "Growing some patchy hair on your face and neck." Technically "better" but still horrible, in my opinion.

In my opinion the writing is worse than a lot of stuff on the page, and I agree that those YMMV entries are iffy at best. The fanart could also be more because of Linkara's own fanbase rather than the comic's (though some of them, which he displays in the webcomic, are pre-Atop the Fourth Wall). So maybe it should stay on unless someone can find better evidence that it has enough fans outside of Linkara's own fanbase.

The fact that you don't mind the plagiarism doesn't keep it from being plagiarism. Which is ALWAYS a bad thing. I also note your defense of the comics quality is that "at least 51 people like it."

No. Replacing.

We're not here to make quality judgments on the ethics of plagiarism (well, outside of the fact that we don't allow it, of course).

But the fact that it's #278 out of a few thousand comics on that site does lead me to believe that there is a fanbase... though whether or not that site is reputable or not I have no idea.

It's up to #138 now and that's impressive when the site ranks nearly 10,000 webcomics.

As weird as the whole situation is and blatant art theft aside, it looks like it somehow (maybe via Deal with the Devil) acquired enough of a following to not qualify for this page.

To compare The GaMERCaT is only 271 and VG Cats is 1,333.

Two far lower ranking comics that despite the later being Love It or Hate It are definitely not material for this page.

That honestly makes the site look LESS reputable.

If "it got a few likes on this one site" wasn't enough to get Happily N'Ever After removed from Animated Films, why would it be enough for this page?

This may be true, but the only issues the section bring up is that it is a shameless rip-off of TwoKinds and that he Can't Take Criticism.

I have already mentioned that some things being blatant plagiarism doesn't necessarily make the whole thing bad (if it were, there would definitely be [http://www.closinglogos.com/page/Logo+Rip-Offs tons of logos worth of mention]) and it clearly has invested fans enough to warrant positive feedback.

I think that my main issue is that if we were to view blatant plagiarism as a plus instead of a minus, much like we would positively receive a fan-comic author that blatantly plagiarizes images of buildings and characters because it means that the author has Shown Their Work when it comes to designing the obscure building and character that is almost never talked about, that it would mostly be viewed as your average webcomic. Definitely not a masterpiece, but far from being comparable to Sonichu , Vegan Artbook or Faith Mouse.

And let us not remember the wise words of the (not so) wise man John Enter, which say that horrible people can make great art and nice people can make really bad art.

You removed the example again without waiting for a consensus, Hydrix. That's not how discussion works.

I'll admit that basing something on something else doesn't always equal bad. There's several Pokemon clones that all became successful, but that's because they had enough decent original material to stand on their own and didn't blatantly copy-paste.

However, the plagiarism isn't the only criticism of this comic: Its art also widely derided, and after reading a few pages and finding things like the same face applied to four different characters in a single panel, and a battle where everyone looks like they're bored and not even trying, I can see why.

Hello I've noted the new thread about my work, If you have any questions for me I'd be glad to answer them. I rarely ever spoke before so please you seem to be pretty reasonable people so I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have for me.

I created a thread over here http://project2nd.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

Thanks.

No, as bad as it might be, it HAS a fan base, disqualifying it altogether. http://www.topwebcomics.com/?pageid=3

The dude is even managing to somehow pull in $210 a month via Patreon with it.

The entry as it stands is incredibly transphobic.

i really don't think it belongs here. It's anvil-y but it's clearly meant to inform, not to tell a story or jokes. Kinda suspect the only reason it's even here is because it has an (incredibly transphobic, social justice-bashing) entry on the Bad Webcomics Wiki that ends with a 'btw my trans friend doesn't like it either'.

BTW

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/assigned-male-comic-series/ http://www.gaycentralvalleyblog.com/2015/03/interview-with-assigned-male-creator.html http://adastracomix.com/2015/03/23/19-comic-characters-who-embody-womens-liberation/

So at the very least it's not universally reviled.

Here is a positive article about it on i100, run by The Independent, a major newspaper in the UK: http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-web-comic-about-being-trans-is-as-funny-as-it-is-moving--e1BYpa7djg

So if there are no further objections, i'll be removing the example, then?

That appears to be a legit removal reason. Yank.

No....it really does belong here. It embodies every negative stereotype about transgender people, the characters are annoying and the art is horrible. The author can't take criticism either as evidenced by when she edited that BWW article and gave obvious hints it was her.

Like Billy the Heretic with Stormfront, the only reason THAT gets a pass from those articles is that it agrees with their views, regardless of actual quality. Assigned Male is the sane deal and it still gets far FAR more hatred than fans.

The art is pretty decent. It's clearly supposed to be didactic, not a story per se, so complaining about characterization seems a tad facile. And it only 'embodies negative stereotypes' if you have a problem with trans people speaking up for themselves when misgendered or insulted.

And it's quite legitimate to differentiate between a comic that gets a positive article in a mainstream newspaper and a comic that is only enjoyed by actual nazis. Not all opinions are equal.

And i believe this page is for listing works on the basis of their content, so the behaviour of the author is irrelevant.

Besides, that BWW article isn't serious criticism, it's the worst kind of transphobia-masquerading-as-concern-over-SJW-excess so the conclusion that someone who took issue with it "can't take criticism" is quite unjustified.

The main question I find myself asking is all else being equal, would people still consider this comic So Bad Its Horrible without the transgender aspect?

Call it a hunch, but I suspect the answer is no.

Fine then, let me clarify my points

The artwork is hideous, characters change proportions every five minutes and the artist has insane trouble with consistency. It could have been a decent style if not for the horrendous off model artwork which makes everyone look like blobs. Much like Billy the Heretic.

Stephie does not speak like a kid...at all. We are meant to relate to her but she acts like a spoiled brat throughout most of it,bringing up movies such as Silence of the Lambs (11 year old right?) and is nothing more than a mouthpiece. People forget that a character like Lisa Simpson still has childish tendencies, something the writer forgot for Stephie. Wouldn't the story work so much better if the kid acted like a kid rather than an adult?

Speaking of mouthpieces, that is all the story is. Rather than raise good points it relies on strawmen, especially Stephie's father and other borderline INSANE points. The reliance on stereotypes does not make your story strong, it makes your argument look weak. It's not due to politics either, we have had comics on the horrible page conservative and liberal alike and need we forget Hathor the Cow Goddess? You can have whatever message you want, it's the execution that matters. Answer me this, does this quote sound like a child AT ALL?

"Come on! Sandro clearly does not follow the hegemonic masculinity model and he wouldn't impose his domination on us. For all we know, we're experiencing a similar oppression due to sexism."

If you want to do a mouthpiece comic, fine, but why use a child with a narrative? It makes your comic look horrible because you now have to keep in mind that your mouthpiece is a kid you at that point in life, kids worry more about lunchtime than patriarchal oppression or transgenderism. These are not characters, these are political debates masquerading as characters. The stories are not compelling in the slightest and the only reason it exists is for the author's views.

This is Billy the Heretic for the opposite spectrum because: Both have horrendous blobby art Both use their child characters as mouthpieces for their own views Both forget that their main leads are children Both use strawmen to an appalling level. Both are storyless trash

As for the newspaper article...right now we have films on the So bad it's horrible list like Last Airbender, Jack & Jill and several others that if you go on Rotten Tomatoes, have SOME decent, even POSITIVE reviews. Those have stayed on the list for quite sometime, why? Because the backlash and hatred they get is large enough to overshadow what little positives they may have gotten. Same goes for this

As for the author's attitude, we have brought up the attitude of several web creators in the past, especially in the Let's play category.

Stuff like Ctrl+Alt+Del, Least I Could Do and Sinfest are controversial but have enough of a fanbase (CAD especially) to justify not putting them on. This however? No. There is way better material out there about the subject matter.

Honestly we shouldn't be comparing anything to Billy the Heretic unless it really is offensive on that level. Billy the Heretic is pretty much the nadir of webcomics. Short of, idk, a comic about putting rednecks in gulags, you aren't going to find a "Billy the Heretic for the opposite spectrum". No amount of mediocrity or unsubtle writing is equivalent in badness to actual nazism.

YMMV on the artwork. Clearly it's no Lackadaisy or Romantically Apocalyptic, but nor is it bad on the level of some of the things on this page. In any case, there are popular webcomics that use stick figures or cut and paste art, so clearly mediocre art does not, in itself, SBIH make.

As far as the rest goes, i think you're missing the point. The comic is clearly not supposed to be a work of narrative genius. Unlike, say, Lisa Simpson, who is an individual character in a larger work with complex storytelling, Stephie is obviously just there to illustrate whatever point the author wants to make. And sure, that's not particularly entertaining, but that's probably not the point of the comic. The point appears to be to critique transphobia. For that purpose Stephie gets a larger vocabulary than is normal for kids and makes references kids maybe can't be expected to make. It's a little awkward, perhaps. But i don't think we're supposed to read the comic as a realist representation of childhood, but rather as a critique of and admonition to transphobia.

So storyless, yes. Trash, no. The characters are not strawmen so much as illustrations of particular transphobic behaviours which the author wishes to criticize. This is a case of some anvils needing to be dropped.

Also, you're just flat out wrong if you think that no children are ever upset by transphobia.

Anyway. The guidelines for SBIH are that a work might qualify if:

• The work has been panned by multiple reputable critics.
• The work has mediocre sales and/or a relatively small audience.
• The work has been parodied for its faults by multiple different sources.

Keep in mind that webcomics are self-published, and most do not attain a major following, so we can probably discount the second bullet. Assigned Male has neither been parodied by multiple sources nor panned by multiple reputable critics.

Assigned Male is offensive, regardless of gender or sexual preference, it relies so much on stereotypes it's horrifying

Romantically Apocalyptic first of all is mainly photoshopped pictures, not proper drawing. This is and it looks terrible. Gag artwork can look fine, look at Hiimdaisy's stuff after all. Those stick artworks work because they are consistent and used for comedy. Assigned Male wants to tell a story and the artwork fails it's narrative by being so blobby and changes each panel.

You just used the "it's not supposed to be good" argument, a very weak argument to me. Unless it's something like a troma film where it is deliberately bad, it doesn't work for semi-serious work like Ms. Labelle is trying to do. You want to criticize transphobia fine, do it, that's cool but if you are doing a webcomic, do a webcomic, not a documentary. You still have to have something resembling fiction. Calvin talks like he does for the purposes of COMEDY but he is still a kid with the same attitude, desires of a kid. Stephie is a bratty know it all through and through

And characters that exist to be criticized for an argument IS A STRAWMAN. Some anvils need to be dropped but not repeatedly on the head and poorly dropped as well.

At Stephie's age I dont believe it. When he hits puberty I can see this, IE the point in life where someone judges sexuality, gender etc. Boys getting fun of for playing with girls toys is one thing, transphobia is another,

As for reviews: http://everything2.com/user/RedOmega/writeups/Assigned+Male http://badwebcomicswiki.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Assigned_Male https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yc2i-Waups (Note that Sophie false flagged the video)

As for parodies a quick google search can provide results

I get that transexualism and the phobias associated to it is a touchy subject and someone standing up for it is a nice idea but crap is crap. A nice cause does not equal nice product as evidenced in that horrible Doctor Who charity song or Vegan Artbook. There has to be a better webcomic about transgenderism out there. I can certainly think of a manga that deals with transexuality better (albeit dealing with transvestites more). No Bra, a flawed but still nice manga that deals with it's subject in a much better way, especially towards the end.

"False flagged"??? i watched the video and as far as i'm concerned we must have very different definitions of "reputable critics". Of the reviews you linked, only the first makes any effort to understand the author's position. The BWW and the video review are stormfront tier bigoted garbage and i'm kind of appalled you even thought the latter was worth linking.

My argument is not that the comic 'isn't supposed to be good', but that it obviously isn't supposed to be a realist representation of childhood, a comedy, or a story. All 3 reviews make this assumption, and it just seems kind of daft to me since it's obvious reading it that each comic is clearly supposed to illustrate a different point (usually concerning cis privilege or transphobia).

Regardless. It was, perhaps, presumptuous of me to mention Romantically Apocalyptic's visuals in the same breath as the lovingly hand-drawn Lackadaisy. That, i will concede. It still looks good to me, though, so i guess we just have different thresholds for what's passable art standards for a webcomic. i don't see how the art in Assigned Male is drastically worse than that of CAD or El Goonish Shive, neither of which is listed here.

Lastly, though, i'm not saying Assigned Male is a great work of art, or that there aren't better comics out there that deal with trans themes. To bring this back to Central Avenue's point above, all else being equal, would this comic be considered SBIH in the absence of trans content, out of all the many, many mediocre webcomics out there? i seriously don't believe it would, and the fact that two of the 3 reviews you linked are mostly transphobic raving really hasn't changed that impression.

Transphobic ranting? Stormfront tier? The people at BWW ranted on many a stormfrontesque comic, Billy the Heretic included. The writer even asked transfriends about whether the comic was a good representation and they said no and even listed positives about SOME info by the strip but declared it a mostly bad comic still.

The problem is she is trying to go for both emotions and laughs and fails. The only positives she has over CAD's art is that it isn't copypasted.

The thing is, I still would consider it awful without the trans content. Even if the book was not about transexualism. It would still fall flat thanks to annoying characters, strawman arguments etc.

She is trying to sell the comic to kids and kids aren't going to relate to this thanks to the wiriting. Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes stuck with this because their morals were balanced out by realistic depictions of kids while still having good comedy that fits with the setting.

The comedy falls flat as does the drama, just because it has a good message does not make it good. No Bra deals with supporting transexualism and that has big problems too even though I really like it.

I give up, this has become a two man show with no other opinion and obviously it's going nowhere.

You can't just write a full page of cisplaining and bigoted jeering and then tack 'my trans friend also dislikes it' on the end and act like that makes it ok!

And the video is borderline-unwatchable, hateful, condescending, smug, sneering, transphobic venom. It made me feel kind of sick, actually, it was honestly really hard to even sit through it. But hey, at least the reviewer's not a mindkilled prog, amirite?

That's my biggest issue with your argument here, you're acting like garbage like that is a valid opinion that TVT must take into consideration, while simultaneously behaving like the positive articles i linked further up the page somehow don't count because 'it agrees with their views'.

CAD's art is also mediocre, yes, but it is not listed on this page. That's my main argument here, not that Assigned Male is ZOMG THE BEST WABCOMIC EVAR but just that it's not SBIH-level awful.

You're right though, right now this is going nowhere.

Yeah, two vastly different opinions regarding one thing is going to lead to no resolution.

Though to be fair to the strip, it has potential to be something at the very least interesting, unlike other strips on here.

Outta curiosity, what is a strip you would consider for the page?

For SBIH? Billy the Heretic is one of the worst, though Shredded Moose was at least as bad.

Most of what's on this page, i wouldn't contest. Girlz n' Games is SBIH, so's Gamer Chicks, so's Faith Mouse. And while i don't condone the bullying CWC received, Sonichu is definitely SBIH.

Oh, so Assigned Male is back. Can we please find a "Random Commenter" quote that doesn't subtly misgender the author by putting "lady" in sarcastic quotes?

Could we at least have an explanation as to why Stephie is a "spoiled brat"? I've read the whole comic and I really don't see it. In fact, the only legit criticism I've seen of it is "Stephie doesn't talk like a real 11-year-old". (The BWW brought up that one, yet gave Ozy and Millie a pass for having its child characters talk about politics and religion. I know I didn't discuss politics when I was ten years old. I was more interested in who the coolest X-man was.)

I realize this is an opinion article, but since when did opinion mean making up half the stuff you dislike about a given work? Yeah, and probably a bad idea to end a rant about how a transgender comic is allegedly transphobic with an anonymous comment that sarcastically refers to the trans female creator as "lady". Yeah, because I've never seen a transphobic bigot do that before.

Removed the "random commenter" quote. I'd like to ask that no one re-add it, for the reasons mentioned above.

You know, if most of the criticisms lodged against "Assigned Male" reek of transphobia and venomous bitterness and apparently aren't even completely truthful, maybe we should agree to cut the whole example?

Yanked it again. The comic isn't exactly a work of art but I've yet to see anyone other than blatant transphobes actually complain about it. It's harmless at worst.

To Bobby G, I have to agree a bit with Larry Larry, and I want to elaborate on this webcomic. Like he said crap is crap. It does not matter what the message is(unless the message is crap to begin with, in which case crap is crap). I think cisgendered types like myself need to recognize the plight of real trans gendered people, but this webcomic is not the way to do it, because it is a crappy comic that is narmy at best, and uncomfortable and cringe worthy at worst. It is a comic where children don't speak or act like children in childish manners, and it exists in a world all of its own that is detached from our reality, and the most important thing to do when pushing a political message is to reflect reality as it is, present truth, because otherwise if you don't you undermine reality, and thus your message.

I liken Assigned Male to something like Captain Planet in that both attempt to deliver a good message, but they shoot themselves in the foot and become laughingstocks for it. It makes proponents of social justice activism more stupid, and opponents more hostile and that is not good.

Except Captain Planet is So Bad it's Good and Assigned Male is So Bad it's Horrible on a technicality. Specifically the difference in budget.

Captain Planet had a decent budget for a Saturday Morning Hanna Barbarra cartoon production, and as a result, the series is akin to a long string of bad GI Joe Episodes, and bad GI Joe Episodes are still entertaining because the animation is generally passable, and the show can be so ludicrous that I can have a fun time picking stuff apart.

Assigned Male is a dime a dozen poorly written AND poorly drawn webcomic that is of all things, boring, and not very eventful, and does not provide enough artistically to keep my attention.

Now when comes to horrible comics on this page, I will say that making a horrible comic does not make you a horrible person. All in all, I consider most bad media to be just mistakes.

Compared to something like Billy the Heretic, which was a bad dull boring comic with a crap message made by a vile person(a nazi), Assigned Male is just bad dull boring comic, with attempted good message by what I assume to be a misguided person(a regular SJW).

But still, crap is crap.

Just repulled it.

Honestly, I think it's a potential contender, but just readding it is against the rules.

In the same vein that "just being offensive in subject matter" shouldn't qualify a work, I worry that the opposite might be at play with people wanting to keep it because they assume naysayers are just offended by the subject matter. Not sure, personally, I don't know about it, but it's something to keep an eye out for. I haven't read it so I can't make any judgement calls, but I think a kneejerk "people who dislike it are transphobic, therefore it's fine" is a tad much. Not saying some haters aren't transphobic, but I'm not saying all of the complaints are based in transphobia.

Okay, having gone through some of this comic... I think it might qualify. The art is bad, both technically and aesthetically, and is unclear. Characters are unlikable, in terms of a narrative it's slightly more enjoyable than being hit in the head with a copy of Moby Dick.

However, two things give me pause: Firstly, does it have a fanbase? Bobby G's second post has links to, presumably, fans of the work, which might disqualify it. They're not exactly proof of a huge, thriving fandom, but it's something.

Secondly, it's kind of hard to qualify what "good" means here. The comic was meant to be a soapbox. It clearly isn't meant to entertain, to be funny, to be witty, or anything. It's meant to be a grounds for the author to give their opinions. I honestly don't know what "good" or "bad" would mean in that context. It's certainly not going to convert or educate anyone who is uncomfortable with the transgender issues, but maybe it can give those that are something to... talk about?

So yeah. It's bad. Really bad. No doubt in my mind. But I have those apprehensions as to whether it can qualify. If anyone can chime in on those issues one way or the other, I'd appreciate it.

Mallard Filmore has a fanbase to but in a special way.

See, when a comic has an agenda, the same people with that agenda will support it regardless. It applies to a lot of things.

Doesn't matter if it's on the horrible page, Mallard Filmore has been running since the 80s.

Doesn't matter if the art is hideous, Gamergate Life is still supported by Gamergaters.

Doesn't matter if it's cruel and downright awful, Gyno Star still has supporters.

So long as it fits their agenda, they will support it. That's why it was featured in those newspapers.

HOWEVER, the art is still hideous, the characters annoying, the message delivered terribly etc. It's awful. Let's not forget those especially laughable splash pages where Stepjie gives "advice" that ranges from passable to downright insane.

Maybe one could argue when it was first taken down the article was a biiiit mean soirited. However, the reqrite was vastly improved and gave better criticism.

I get why people would try and support this comic, I do. But don't let a good cause ruin an awful product. As we'be sern on the horrible advertising page, many a decent message can swiftly be ruined by insane delivry.

Just throwing in my two cents, I'd say keep it gone. Don't get me wrong, it's not a good comic by any means. But deserving of a place on the Horrible page? Nah. It's not that bad. Not compared to some of the awfulness of the other examples. The worst you can say about it is it's dull and repetetive with below average art. There's nothing there to make people shake their heads in disgust or make them angry they sat down and read it like, say, Shredded Moose or Billy The Heretic. In a meta sense it's also trying to do something good even though the author doesn't seem to be up to it. So it has the noble intentions thing going for it too, that has to count for something.

Bottom line; bad comic, not bad enough for this page.

It's times like this I think there should be a "So Bad It's Bad" page or something similar. A page for things like Assigned Male that aren't narmy enough for "So Bad It's Good" but not bad enough for Horrible.

See, my issue with that is that it seems to be more about the subject matter rather than the comic itself. People can have disgust or anger over legitimately decent comics that they disagree with. This is more impressive because I (and many other people that think it's awful) actually do agree with the basic message but still think it's garbage. It's the flip side to the "don't add comics just because you disagree with them," I feel that a comic shouldn't be safe because it's not offensive.

Also, I've given it a bit more thought and since the artist is apparently trying to market it to children as an educational tool makes me lean more towards "it's a total failure." Like I said earlier, it's not trying to be funny or tell a decent narrative so I can't judge it on that. But it is trying to be educational and on that it's an abject failure. The criticism that "she doesn't sound like an 11 year old" holds a lot more weight if this is intended to be for 11 year olds... I can barely get through the verbal diarrhea and I'm versed in all the terms.

Incidentally, I really like your name.

'I feel that a comic shouldn't be safe because it's not offensive.'

I agree that something shouldn't be kept off the Horrible page if it deserves it even if it's trying to preach a good message. But I still just don't think Assigned Male is bad enough. The Horrible page is meant for the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst, the so awful you can't even enjoy it for how bad it is. I just don't see anything from Assigned Male that does that. It's art is below average but not so bad you want to gouge out your eyes. Its writing is dumb, bland and repetitive but it does accomplish what it's trying to do which is to tell short stories about a transgirl navigating life. You can follow it and it doesn't make you want to facepalm every page. The characters aren't up to much but you can tell them apart, they do have (admittedly very threadbare) arcs where they solve problems and come to conclusions. The aviliciousness (anviliciousity?) is heavy but it never really claimed it was anything else except a comic meant to teach trans issues. I just can't see Assigned Male being in the same league as stuff like Billy the Heretic of US Angel Corps. Their kind are on a whole other level of awful, at least to me.

And thanks. :)

First of all, you should know I haven't read the comic. Second, apologies for adding it back once. I didn't know that the examples must be taken to discussion before that.

I'll get to my point. Read back the banner at the top of the SBIH page. It asks to "please keep off the page examples that are subjective", and this one IS subjective. Isn't that reason enough for it not to be here?

She made a issue where she claims that homosexual couples can reproduce.

Without any irony whatsoever.

That's not just wrong, considering the fanbase, that's straight up lying.

Why have we not put this abomination here for permanent residenc?

Because offensiveness is not a criterium for this page, maybe?

I'm not saying it is offensive. It's spreading false information for the sake of their beliefs.

We didn't put Martin Luthorking.org because it was offensive (though it certainly was) we put it on because it's a white supremacist site masquerading as a legitimate information site. Same goes for Transexual.org. Purposeful misinformation is inexcusable.

I still can't believe people defend this comic. It's horrible characters, awful blobby artwork and so much more

I think it's terrible even though I never read it. I said the comic doesn't belong here for being subjective just to stop the edit wars.

It doesn't matter what you think or how you feel about the comic, it doesn't fit the criteria for reasons already established. I honestly can't understand why people refuse to "get" this other than having some kind of axe to grind.

As the one who wrote the martinlutherking.org example I feel the need to elaborate to help moving the discussion forward.

For one, I added it on here because it was so notorious for having Blatant Lies that it is taught in classes as a go-to example for misinformation on the internet. The only thing it has going for it is that it is a top link on google search engines because of how old the site is.

That being said, the main reason why I added it is because it even fails at being propaganda. The only thing this site has stimulated is the bad grades of the poor kid that thought the information source was good enough to be used for his small powerpoint about the history of black people in the United States.

In short, the site is shit not for what it is wanting to do, but for how it accidentally cultivated horrible stuff by its existence.

Purposeful misinformation may indeed be inexcusable (I hear there is a site out there that gives a grading for how qualitative the information of websites is.) and while it may be a reason why I included it it is something else entirely at its core.

If its propaganda worked (like was the case with Triumph Of The Will, which a lot of people still can take for granted) it would have never been considered to be the shit site that was bad enough to be a qualifier.

her argument that gay couples can reproduce can be technically seen as correct. a trans woman who hasn't had bottom surgery yet, for example, but still identifies as a woman, can reproduce with a cis woman. so that isn't misinformation or lying.

going off of that alone, some of her misinformation may just be wonky wording or ideas that aren't well understood by society enough (especially when it comes to trans issues) that she's trying to spread. maybe she just needs to be clearer on some things.

The real problem I have with the "It's not supposed to be funny!" and "It's designed to be a soapbox!" arguments are, if it's just meant to be a soapbox why is it wrapped up in the narrative of this 11-year-old's life? Stephie not talking like an 11-year-old bears so much more credence here than other examples given because she's supposed to be an actual 11-year-old facing 11-year-old problems with other 11-year-olds. What ends up happening in every. single. strip. is that Stephie's opponents are strawmanned to hell and back until it sounds like Stephie is a 30-something with a chip on her shoulder berating actual 11-year-olds.

Again, no matter how good the cause, the execution is just so crap it can't be excused. Because the only arguments are way-too-socially-aware Stephie vs Straw Man Du Jour it's so unbalanced that it's openly advocated putting all children on hormone blockers, ousting cis homosexual males form the lgbt+ community, and telling every child that they're basically not allowed to be comfortable being cis. The numerous times Stephie in the comic gets a friend of hers to realize they're trans or non-binary read a lot more like indoctrination than they do any sort of real self-discovery. A number of pages circled Tumblr rather infamously as reading like parodies of their own message.

Maybe I'm making special allowances, and forgive me if I am, but I feel like even if it has some fanbase it should definitely qualify for this page because the fanbase it has is not any fanbase that it's actually meant to appeal to. If the entire fanbase is as distortedly one-sided as the comic itself that's not really an endorsement.

Squirtle absolutely nailed it. Assigned Male is horrendous through all of it and it is a serious nominee for worst webcomic of all time in my book.

Just popping back to this thread to point out that the very day after I posted my last post a page of Assigned Male came out pretty explicitly stating the entire comic is the author's excuse to be a shitty person and feel justified about it, not education.

Hotlinking doesn't work.

If this entry absolutely must stay (and I'd rather it not, if only because opinions on it are so sharply split), it should probably be updated to reflect things you brought up—with direct links, so that it's harder to fudge criticism (saying this because, apparently, a lot of earlier "criticisms" of this comic were blown out of proportion or false).

Yeah, I'd agree this belongs here, and I feel like it'd still be up if some people weren't on a transphobia witch hunt. Reading a single strip is a slog, and reading through it enough to form a more complete opinion is... just soul-rending.

I don't doubt it's got its fans, but I'm sure damn near every piece of trash out there does too. Re-add, please.

It doesn't, and the "witch hunt" is completely justified. Get over yourself.

A bit less insulting, please.

So we should give it a pass simply because it's pro-trans? I think not.

Bottom line is that it fails in near every way. Personally, I half thought it was some sort of cruel satire by transphobes on /b/ when I first read it; I know I'm not the only one either. That the author thinks it is in any way "enlightening", or would convince ignorant people to support transgender individuals after reading, is mind-numbingly foolish, and on the contrary, could easily give people a reason to think worse of such people.

Write a 1000 word disclaimer on how nobody here is a bigot for recognizing quality for what it is, if you must, but let's not deny crap when it's sitting there for all the world to smell.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

IT HAS FANS THAT AREN'T RANDOM INTERNET SCHLUBS

I DON'T CARE HOW BAD YOU THINK IT IS IT DOES NOT FIT THE DEFINITION

GET THIS THROUGH YOUR THICK UNYIELDING SKULL

I think you're getting entirely too worked up by this.

I'd say it does fit the definition. It fails to appeal to its niche. There's a mountain of evidence to be found supporting how objectively horrible it is in a simple cursory reading; bad art, unrealistic behavior, strawmanning, countless unfunny jokes... it doesn't have to be the worst to be horrible, and it's horrible.

I agree with a prior post regarding "So Bad It's Bad", but until then my vote is to re-ad.

OH MY GOD IT DOESN'T

THIS WAS PROVEN YOU IDIOT

READ THE GODDAMN THREAD

The discussion can still continue, and has done so. And I can still think it's a damn horrible comic even if it gets off on a technicality. I'm not going to change my mind because a few "schlubs" have bad taste.

If that upsets you... well, I don't particularly care. Throwing a tantrum because some people disagree won't help you any.

It still is a horrible comic regardless. Regardless of politics, Stephie is still insufferable, the art ishideous, it makes Captain Planet look subtle and it gives insane, terrible, downright condescending advice and teachings to its relatively tiny audience.

The art is fine. I'm sorry the very idea of a transgender person asking people to respect their identity drives you into a rage, and you believe you're a magical telepath who can intuit that someone doesn't "really" like a comic and is just supporting it for political reasons, but it's staying off the page. End of story. End of discussion. Game over.

The art is terrible. And it's not "transgender person asking people to respect their identity", it's "transgender person alienates and condescends with a poorly written and illustrated comic which is so bad that initial readers often think it's transphobic parody".

It doesn't take telepathy to figure out why someone would support something so unarguably terrible either. Or become so irrationally irate in its defense, for that matter.

The discussion does seem to be leaning towards readding, actually.

I think it belongs. While I don't have any strong issues against its art style (although if Vegan Artbook can make it here, than I don't see Assigned Male's artwork as a good reason for removal), the rest of the stated reasons are on point.

It's here because a lot of people on TV Tropes are really mad at uppity transfolk and can't understand the rules of So Bad It's Horrible or refuse to when it bites them in the ass.

I genuinely can't figure out what side of the argument you're on.

The side that is annoyed people refuse to "get" the rules or spend five seconds figuring out why a comic about transgender issue pisses them off so much.

Okay, now that's not being helpful. People can think a comic is horrible and not be transphobic. You know that, right? And in the same way the rules say "being offensive isn't an instant qualifier," not being offensive shouldn't be an instant disqualifier.

Even with that in mind (and personally, I think at least some of the 'criticism' it got sounds uncomfortably close to transphobic), it's been proven to have a genuine fanbase that's not composed solely of awful people (like Billy the Heretic or USAC). That should be enough reason to keep it off this page.

Please, let's stop re-adding the damn thing before the mods start swatting people and/or cutting pages.

^ See, now that is an argument. Saying "everyone who thinks it's horrible is transphobic" just makes me want it on the page more. I laid out my thoughts below on whether or not it's horrible in its own right, but I have no earthly idea one way or the other whether it has an unironic fanbase or not.

It was previously established it does, it just got buried under the mountains of whining.

I feel like whether it has fans or not is somewhat irrelevant. Horrible is horrible, and it's pretty damn horrible.

There's such thing as bad taste, after all.

Everything has "fans" no matter how bad it is. It's impossible to churn out something so bad that someone doesn't still like it.

But, if it has a significant fanbase of any sort, this just cannot apply. Even if the fanbase exists for the "wrong" reasons.

Hey it's not just a few fans, remember this?

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/assigned-male-comic-series/ http://www.gaycentralvalleyblog.com/2015/03/interview-with-assigned-male-creator.html http://adastracomix.com/2015/03/23/19-comic-characters-who-embody-womens-liberation/

Here is a positive article about it on i100, run by The Independent, a major newspaper in the UK: http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-web-comic-about-being-trans-is-as-funny-as-it-is-moving--e1BYpa7djg

It's way too well-regarded to be put there, end of discussion, meeting adjourned, everybody go home. I don't care how incomprehensible this is to you, it doesn't fit the rules and doesn't belong here, and I don't care how many trans friends you have who totally support you on this.

I don't have any trans friends, but if I did I wouldn't need their input to recognize it as an offensively bad webcomic. Though the fact that there are trans people who seem to despise it would indeed fill a requirement.

Articles that praise it simply because its premise is "centered around a trans girl" whether it's a heaping pile of feces or not won't change that (nor, I think, people here who'd defend it for that same reason). To be quite blunt, if I didn't know any better, I could look at this comic and think "This is transsexualism? Well fuck them." And I know a lot of people wouldn't know better.

"I don't have any trans friends" What a surprise.

Do you have friends who understand the rules of what does and doesn't go on this page? Maybe ask them about it.

"I don't have any black friends, but after watching Madea Goes To Jail, I can see why the KKK feels the way they do"

"I don't have any gay friends, but after watching Ben and Arthur, I can understand why the Westboro Baptist Church feels the way they do"

"I don't have any Jewish friends, but after watching Eight Crazy Nights, I can see why the Nazis felt the way they did"

Careful; you're using an Appeal to Ridicule argument there.

I think this discussion needs to be shelved.

Memo to the folks who want this here because "horrible is horrible" or whatever: Personally thinking something is dreadful does not mean it qualifies for this page. What is required here is a negative critical consensus and a complete lack of a visible fanbase. Truly Horrible works, by the site's definition, are actually very, very rare, and Assigned Male, love it or hate it, does not qualify.

Seriously, Myr went a bit overboard with the rhetoric here, but he has some good points. I mean, there are folks here essentially arguing against established fact because they take issue with the content of the comic or its tone for whatever reason, and that's not the point of this page. Or any TVT page, really.

It's to collect "worst works" examples, so to speak.

Not a mod, but the way I see it, these pages are useful for determining what can bring down a work, and what should be avoided or handled carefully in your own.

I have no words for what happened as well, as it was a well-enough entry on its own right considering the knowledge that I do have.

I do however believe that it does have an unironic fanbase (a 4,78/5 (round that number up and you get a 5/5) obviously means that it is going to be something that is well remembered). I just have no reasons to delete the edit as it is (it is a pretty good one obviously).

Perhaps he has some pretty good defensive statements to make as to why the edit should not be on here. I will re-add the entry and let him discuss the reasons why he removed the edit.

In hindsight there seem to be fans of rape porn as well. It has everything to qualify as a serious unironically good comic. I remove the example.

Maybe SYAC can go, if it's more divisive than outright Horrible. I'd argue that USAC should stay because, in addition to problems already outlined, it is completely and utterly morally bankrupt: the way it sneers at the Angels and allows its male villains to god-mod all over the place makes it very clear that the author despises women (or despised, but it's hard for me to be optimistic about that). Hence "nothing but offense".

Seemingly appealing to nobody but people who are dangerous to be around (and that is the most charitable way I can put it. This isn't an assumption based on its content; I forced myself to peek at the forums once) isn't helping. See "Billy the Heretic's fandom full of hateful assholes".

Someone else will have to elaborate on Chaos Diamonds 3; I can't read it, knowing the sort of person the author is.

Pardon, but "morally bankrupt" is not a criterium for SBIH at all; that "trope" is solely about quality, not about whether it's offensive or not.

To RADIX: I think that the links that referenced US Angel Corps show you that you would have to have a complete overhaul if you included "nothing but offense" (which I will not add as they are well-made comics all around and yes, that INCLUDES Angel Corps itself).

Since some did not want to read the links (understandably) I will give them a brief description of what happens in each. The links will also be removed just briefly after the time of the writing: For Manga:

• The one annotated as being made before US Angel Corps is Flying Girl [UZIGA WAITA]. Its rape porn (adult man on teenage girl) in which both the victim as well as the rapist take hits from a knife and that ends with both the rape victim and the rapist dying.
• The one annotated as being made when US Angel Corps ran is Maou no!! 03 Trick and Treat!! | Demon Lord's 03 Trick and Treat!! (PLUM FE Vol. 7) [Hitomaru]. It is a brief porn comic where a young demon girl is having sex with a knight that died when he battled her.
• The one annotated as being made after the cancellation of US Angel Corps is The Lust of Mai Shiranui. It is about a girl getting raped and going through hell to get a continuously worse and worse molestation. In the end of the comic she gets killed and the 2 villains (a man and a woman) have sex with her. In what has to be a weird plot twist Chun Li goes to the scene where the crime is to find what Vega was doing all along.

For Western Comics:

• The one before US Angel Corps ran is Hard Bet (The Elder Scrolls) [Magic Steel]. It is about 2 girls who enjoy gladiator battles and that want to fight one together against each other with the loser getting raped and killed. In the end both of them are raped, killed and used as sex dolls. The very final page also includes a pic where a girl her head is getting run over by a train.
• The one made when US Angel Corps ran is The Execution of Joanne [Dolcett]. It is about a woman that gets an execution trial where she gets raped by plenty of people (including her dad, who came to visit her) and gets executed while timing her death only to have sex with her later on and put her into the freezer.
• The one made after US Angel Corps was cancelled is Keyboard Warrior [Magicsteel], which is about a naked girl killing off other naked girls to be part of the real world, where the guy sitting in front of the computer kills her to have sex with her all the while getting romance by another girl. The creator of this comic may have been trying to make a statement here.

Thus I can conclude with ease that there is arguably much viler stuff on the internet than US Angel Corps on both sides of the pacific, with all of them being acclaimed by their own demographic except for The Execution Of Joanne, which was generally reviled that would then be able to bet on the list.

I have seen US Angel Corps and I think it's all right compared to most of the things I listed, but it seems to be just my opinion.

Its main criticism by the many depraved souls (as of the opinion of most here anyway) is that it does not differentiate well enough its regular porn (which is what many are tuning in for) from its more heavy stuff, but it's acclaimed nevertheless.

And I think the demographic for Billy The Heretic never really existed, as it is not the only neo-nazi webcomic in existence.

And please do not use morally bankrupt as a criteria. I can already think of the pedophiles on this site (and believe me that there are) using this as a gateway drug to list plenty of Lolicon.

Alright, then. Putting aside the stuff I outlined above, for the moment.

If, at minimum, the "most vile webcomic out there" bit were removed or altered, would the entry stand a better chance of staying?

The entry should focus on the quality issues, I'd say. Putting in a note that the theme of the work puts off the rest of any possible audience may work, though.

Edited the entry a bit with that in mind. If I can think of anything else to add, I might go back and do so, but I'd like to give someone else the chance to elaborate on USAC first.

to RADIX: I will write the article in the style of a commentary. It will help you where I think that the article still has issues.

" US Angel Corps would be just another pornographic plotless wonder if not for its extreme Audience-Alienating Premise. The "plot" (and the term should be used extremely lightly) involves nothing more than scantily clad female agents being sent on missions for the government, inevitably failing and then being graphically raped, mutilated and murdered, sometimes not in that order."

So how is this horrible? The Lust of Mai Shiranui has the same "plot" and it got a very high score by those who read it (around 4,57/5 to be exact).

"There's no story or any sort of development"

Department of Redundancy Department

"—while there are a handful of potentially-interesting elements, the comic has no interest in exploring any of them in-depth."

Sounds contradictory when you wanted to convince us that it was plotless. It needs elaboration.

"It's just one death after the other and throws all the characters away as quickly as they appeared (although Negative Continuity is in effect for all but one bizarre exception, Tamara)."

With some editing I could use that line to describe The Lust of Mai Shiranui.

"While the comic's only redeeming quality is the artwork, it actually makes it worse since it lets readers experience every horrific round of torture, rape and death in agonizing detail."

If all those fans of I Spit On Your Grave ever taught me a thing it is that you can let people like such a premise. At least if you add that all the realism (which good art enhances) is going to let you show the horrifying consequences of torture, rape and death.

"What does it say when a woman being brutally raped by her captor (and starting to enjoy it halfway through) then getting shot through the head is one of the tamer chapters?"

Probably that it has the same level of brutality as shown in The Lust of Mai Shiranui.

"It may be one of the few webcomics out there worse than Billy The Heretic since your average person can sit through a few of those strips without wanting to vomit their guts out."

Ren & Stimpy may be one of the few cartoons out there that is worse than Da Boom Crew since your average person can sit through a few of the episodes without wanting to vomit their guts out.

The last bit is perfectly analogous with the information you just provided but there are just so many things wrong with it.

I hope you can still find a reason to keep it on the list. If not, you can always message though. There is nothing wrong with not knowing.

Edited it again.

Just wanted to say good job, RADIX. Obviously I want USAC to stay (said my bit down below so won't repeat it again) but your description is better than mine was. Mine was a bit angrish-y, yours gets down to why this thing is so bad much more concisely. Again, good job.

@Purr Elise: Thanks. ^^ Hopefully, I've done enough to secure its place here at least a bit better.

I am honest and I will say that the current article one is much better written than previous ones and that it shows (just) enough content to differentiate itself somewhat from The Lust of Mai Shiranui. There is however still one phrase I have issues with.

"even if you're a guro fan, the Angels' reactions to their predicaments are usually played too realistically for comfort"

This just simply is not really true. Its art is a bit less stylized than The Lust of Mai Shiranui, but it is definitely more stylized than Flying Girl.

Come to think of it all of the comics I listed have stylized art, with only The Execution of Joanne being exempt (which is the only comic I listed that did have very bad ratings, 1.45/5 to be exact).

By "reactions are too realistic", I wasn't talking about the art style—I meant that the Angels are usually shown crying and begging for their lives (which has a very high chance of triggering someone, hence why I mentioned that).

I don't read guro beyond bits of Shintaro Kago, so I could be wrong, but doesn't a lot of guro seem to take place in this alternate universe where everyone is a guro fetishist and they gladly jump right into it? Thus blunting the horror a tiny bit. When USAC's original entry claimed it was too repugnant even for guro fans, I assume it was partly because the comic...doesn't do that.

The problem is that it does not make my statement about US Angel Corps being more realistic than The Lust Of Mai Shiranui and less realistic than Flying Girl (which has a score of 3,95) any less valid.

The Lust of Mai Shiranui is definitely more stylized in that regard as the main character is not sensitive to the torture that she is going through. In Flying Girl it is however worse as not only is she crying and defending her life from the one who assaults and attacks her, going as far as to try to kill the attacker at the end of the comic to save her own life. Even the parents of the girl are in the comic and worry about her while simultaneously being too scared to do anything at the same time for fear of making things even worse, which is how a lot of concerned parents would react too if their daughter were in such a situation.

It does however make my statement of The Execution of Joanne invalid, as in that comic the reactions which you find apathetic are much more exaggerated. You fail to have sympathy for any character in the comic, as it is basically about a woman getting tortured and killed all the while whining through the entire comic. Not even the parent is sympathetic, as he spends his visit having sex with her and when Joanne is going to get executed he times her death together with other people. After her death they all have sex with her once again.

I do not read a lot of guro either (though I might start reading the webcomic Slightly Above Average as I seem to like it), but I definitely think that indeed a few guro comics/manga do indeed take place in the alternate universe you described. It is however a small set of all the comics that could be described as "guro" and there are probably just as much guro comics being set in this specific alternate universe as there are that portray guro as ultra-realistic as possible.

Personally I think that whether or not a guro comic uses a certain style depends more on the artist rather than anything else. All six guro comics that I just described look very different from one another and that is because they all had an artist behind them that has a different perception of how guro should be made.

There are however only like a handful of guro comics that I read though. I do however admit that I am glad that I read those 6 guro comics, as I felt really enlightened after reading them (in the sense that I now know more about how sickening stuff sometimes can have artistic merits, how low one can morally write (though I would personally prefer to reread all 6 comics rather than reading a second chapter of Dominic Deegan , which does have fans and thus excludes it from this list.) and how you can not judge the quality of something based on depravity alone).

I think the key part that someone said earlier is that it's nothing but the premise. Judging it by plot, characters, or anything resembling a narrative and it's complete garbage. It tries to have something of a premise, and it falls completely and utterly flat. It attempts to have some action before the gore, but action is decisively not one of Cheung's strong points. Let me put it this way... replace the guro with standard sex scenes and it'd still be awful. This is worse than straight up smut because it does try to do more, and fails miserably.

Your defense boils down to "it's not that offensive" and "a gallery on E-Hentai has a not-atrocious rating" which honestly means very little.

“I think the key part that someone said earlier is that it's nothing but the premise. Judging it by plot, characters, or anything resembling a narrative and it's complete garbage.”

Depends on how you define “garbage”. I personally think that it is not THAT bad. In terms of plot it is indeed really repetitive but quite good at what it tries to portray. The characters all have distinct personality traits and unique abilities and it has a very solid narrative.

“It attempts to have some action before the gore, but action is decisively not one of Cheung's strong points.”

That is subjective. I did like the action scenes.

“Let me put it this way... replace the guro with standard sex scenes and it'd still be awful.”

I think that on most porn sites it would get a 4/5.

“This is worse than straight up smut because it does try to do more, and fails miserably.”

I can already imagine a hater of those shorts saying the same thing about it to me: “It does try to do more than showing bunnies exploding, and it fails miserably. It makes it worse than those guro shorts you see on the net.”

“Your defense boils down to "it's not that offensive" and "a gallery on E-Hentai has a not-atrocious rating" which honestly means very little.”

I have never said that it was not offensive, as it is (I recall my quotation: “To put it bluntly, US Angel Corps may be very depraved, but whether or not it is the most depraved webcomic ever is a very subjective matter.”). I simply compared this webcomic to comics/manga/manhua that were about as depraved to show that it is a horrible idea to add something appointed as being "nothing but offense" to a list that indexes works that are of horrible quality.

"a gallery on E-Hentai has a not-atrocious rating" means a lot as it means that it has a fanbase. I requote the front page:

Important Note: Merely being offensive in its subject matter is insufficient. Hard as it is to imagine at times, there is a market for all types of deviancy (no matter how small a niche it is). It has to fail to appeal even to that niche to qualify as this.

You have used a very lame Appeal to Ridicule that is very disrespectful to both me as well as the one that rewrote the entire wiki. I started having a consensus with the user that commented me after he rewrote the entire article and you basically told him that all the effort that went into his re-edit was futile. It also does not require a lot of research to see that I wrote a lot more arguments than only 2. I used analogies and comparisons that you apparently did not even bother to watch as you recalled only 2 of my arguments. The other guy that was talking to me at least had the guts to admit that he did not represent the awfulness of the comic all that well and rewrote the article so that it had a reason to be on the list. I am more inclined now to comment on him so that the article may keep existing (I am already thinking of a good substitute should I win the debate and succeed at removing the article, as the article is well-written, but still has one major issue that could be fixed by replacing the comic with another one.).

@hydrix: Would adding a note that you're meant to find the Angels' reactions appealing instead of horrifying work? I don't feel that I could remove that trigger warning in good conscience, even if "Flying Girl" also has everyone act like normal human beings, because—well. It's a trigger warning.

And if you were referring to me, I don't think Larkmarn was devaluing my efforts.

I watched the comments on Flying Girl and I will say that such a note could work if you add enough reason to make it so that people do not think about its realism as if it Crosses the Line Twice .

I also do not think that Larkmarn wanted to devalue your efforts either, but I wanted to annotate that his statement had Unfortunate Implications .

Made another edit, hopefully a satisfactory one.

It is more than satisfactory. I will however delete the second bulletpoint, as it violates Example Indentation and gives absolutely no elaboration on the entry whatsoever.

I agree with PurrElise.

Also, I think the fact that the guy who originally pulled the example (rockingCavalier) was permbanned for his Misogynist and Anti-Semitic behavior is something to consider.

Uh, yeah. I can't believe that ever got pulled.

Yes, being offensive isn't reason alone to be SBIH, but it's nothing but offense. And yeah, everything on the internet will have some fans, especially something as niche as this. It's precisely why we don't have "bad subject matter isn't an auto-qualify." But it's also a bad comic.

Exactly. I didn't know about rockingCavalier's dubious history either. That might explain some things. The one that pulled it recently has been in trouble too though I think that was more over editing things they shouldn't. Hmm...

So, if no one has any objections, I'm gonna put it back. That okay with everyone?

No objections. Heck, I'll put it back right now for you.

Nice one. :)

I agree. Tom Preston is by no means a good comic but I don't think it deserves the Horrible label. It's bad but not that bad. I'm guessing it got an entry here because of how unpopular the creator is rather than based on the actual quality of his work.

Come to think of it I was pretty surprised it has no TV Tropes page. Is there an actual reason for that? If not I don't mind making one.

I believe the reason why "So... You're a Cartoonist?" did not have a T Vtropes page for so long is because Tom Preston is a likely candidate for the codifier of the "Small Name, Big Ego" trope. Emphasis on the small name part. Tom Preston was discovered by the 4chan imageboards, because he was related slightly to the interests of the many boards of interest on 4chan. This includes the main four of comics, cartoons, video games and anime. Tom Preston in his comics and journal posts gave out opinions that drew the ire of the boards for being either uneducated, elitist, or both.

When it comes to actual works by Tom Preston, he is actually sort of lacking. Not just in quality, but quantity even more so. For instance, Alex Ze Pirate, his supposedly full fledged adventure series with original characters and setting, reads like it is unfinished, like it skips ahead to certain exciting moments without the necessary in between stuff that show us who these characters are and how they got to a certain scene.

Syac doesn't even have a continuous story either, it's just Tom getting mad and irritated at stuff that happens to him. So because of his lack of tropes, he has a lack of works, so he has a lack of notability, so in the long run, he ends up being not even worth mentioning because he has not created that much to even warrant his presence an authoritative stance on anything in entertainment let alone a webcomic where he is an authoritative stance on entertainment.

In general, the only people who have heard of Tom Preston are ironic channer folks who are suffering from a Chris Chan dry spell, a 10-15 year old demographic of internet noobies who don't go to TV Tropes, and Brental Floss, who probably doesn't go to T Vtropes either. So thus, that is why there is no page. No one cared.

Then remove it. I just cut out the US Angel Corps one because it didn't fit.

Why didn't US Angel Corps fit?

Grim Tales has an actually noticeable fanbase. Same goes for Shadbase.

Plus Shadbase...I dunno, at this point he has lost shock value. He's like a little kid who just learned that swearing is fun. Plus he realized his "comedy" strips were awful and gave up on those, a wise move. He draws a ton of grotesque stuff but...It just lacks shock, I don't think he believes in the stuff he draws, I think he is in it for s*** and giggles

Plot twist: he was you.

@Kuro Kokoro

Who was me? Chris Hall or Blunt Time? Because I'm neither.

But I'll admit, that if that were true, it would be the greatest plot twist ever in the universe, especially if I were both because this little mystery behind this webcomic has become a intricate web of misconceptions, lies, misdirections, ruses, and misleadings.

Me being Chris Hall and Blunt Time, and the whole thing being in my weird little head would be the perfect ending. Almost Fight Club esque. However, that ending isn't possible, because I am not Chris Hall, nor am I Blun Time, or Liz Davis or infamous lolcow Robert Wayne Stiles.

I'm just some random dope who stumbled upon something at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Apparently after I made a thread on 4chan's /co/ about Shredded Moose, Blun Time kind of blew up and went over to /co/ and made a skirmish. There I found that his/her name was Liz Davis and apparently he/she made or is at least making a webcomic called "Watch Your Mouth", with the prototype name of the project being "Inspired By Shredded Moose". Basically it seems to be a personal project about the author's life but done in the weird style of Shredded Moose in both terms in regards to Penny Arcade style retro graphic artwork and the (attempted metaphysical?) writing style. But except for transgenders. I know, it's a little bizarre, but the art looks great, probably because he/she hired a talented artist to do the artwork.

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=103591

Apparently Liz Davis is infamous on the chan boards, and caused some drama over his/her pushing of his/her project at some board at some chan I did not know about called "How's Your Webcomic" or "/HYW/". They referred to her as "that crazy tranny who loves Shredded Moose".

Welp I got some research when I found an archive of the lolcow board was still up so as I was browsing through different threads about different decrepit losers, I decided to go to a thread about Robert Wayne Stiles, in famous bath salts taking, the pyromaniac tranny that I heard about but never cared to read about(I'm more familiar with CWC, Nick Bates, and ADF).

http://888chan.org/cow/res/39352.html

The thread was done by Homor, who is a bit of a celebrity on the chan boards, simultaneously revered for his wisdom and insights and mocked for well... being a "Tripfag" as people who use tripcodes are called.

Homor also did this video that I personally found hilarious and I thought his interpretation of Chris Hall was spot on because it matched with mine at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsrKhK8kA0A

Then I found out that Chris Hall was an environmentalist. I wish I had a link to the video. It was in our deleted conversations. But going on...

It was in this thread that I read up an exactly who Robert Wayne Stiles was, and apparently he is a really crazy person who takes bath salts and sets things on fire. He was also, strangely enough Shredded Moose's single fan and he made a crazy blog devoted to it called Shredded Moose Memorial or something.

In it he claimed there was a conspiracy against Shredded Moose by (Social Justice Warriors)SJ Ws and John Soloman of Badwebcomics.blogspot.com and Dave Willis of Shortpacked! fame. He claimed they ganged up on the creators and lambasted them for being misogynistic when their work was actually a satire of misogyny through politically incorrect humor ala South Park.

Now this claim is definately bogus bollocks, because first, John Soloman is not who you would call a politically correct SJW, he was in fact, a troll. The best kind of troll. A professional troll. The kind who was insightful as he was inciteful. He would tell a creator to die in a fire in one breath, but give advice on how to make a good webcomic in another. He'd claim that the comics he reviewed were "worse than Hitler", but then recommend some good webcomics every now and then, and accurately explain why he thought work was bad by pointing out the objective flaws in such work. Most tellingly, his first review was actually of Shortpacked! Now while that review was his tamest work, and while John Solomon was initially a fan, John lambasted Shortpacked! for focusing on drama, noting that Dave Willis sucks hard at drama, and that he should stick to comedy. He called Dave Willis a hack for listening to fans who demanded more drama in Shortpacked!

http://badwebcomicsarchive.blogspot.com/2007/06/shortpacked.html

Plus Dave Willis, himself isn't the kind of person to conspire or lead an army against anyone. Most likely Dave Willis is the kind of person who would have an army against him because as John Solomon would put it, "Dave Willis lacks the balls to make firm decisions".

Now while RWS's conspiracy theories are inane and bogus, and paranoid over something extremely petty, there was a kernal of truth in his arguments.

While there is no grand "SJW conspiracy", and Chris Hall and Brian Krumm aren't as persecuted as we thought(They do children's books now, and they seem to be doing fine), Shredded Moose did turn against the misogyny it displayed going so far to have the Marty Stu frat boy protagonist face repercussions for his actions, have his friends turn away from him and point out his insanity, and ultimately getting raped with a green dildo by the Strawman Feminist in revenge for the girl he raped, and show him what it feels like to go through the trauma of rape, with the Strawman Feminist being completely in the right and with the Marty Stu protagonist being completely in the wrong. Suffice to say, there's no way to deny it the tables were completely turned midway through the comic. Is the comic still terrible? Yes, at least to me because this reversal of philosophy and intent makes the comic even more confusing, and when you try to portray dramatic scenes with comical PA style characters, it makes the tone confusing and makes wonder whether or not you should be laughing or not. Same with Shortpacked!. It was practically the kernal of truth expressed with Blun Time's edits and discussion.

Now here's where it gets crazy, in the deleted discussions between Blun Time and me, I linked him/her the video of Homor dressed up as Chris Hall, mocking Shredded Moose, and mentioned some aspects about 789chan and 888chan and about the culture on those boards and the lolcows that we laughed at, and he/she brought up Robert Wayne Stiles, and feverishly denied that he/she was him/her, and he even sent me photos of himself cosplaying as Brew. Or at least what I thought were photos of him/her cosplaying as Brew. suffice to say I believed him/her. I mean the time stamped photos didn't even look like the pictures of RWS so I thought "okay legit".

Then guess what, as I scrolled through screencaps of RWS's insane defenses of Shredded Moose and his "Chimpouts", I came across something shocking.

According to /cow/, these screencap were from a blog from RWS, and if what /cow/ says is true, then Liz Davis, who was Blun Time, was Robert Wayne Stiles all along!

From what I've heard Robert Wayne Stiles has got people to pose in pictures for him so that he can create sock puppet accounts and fool people like me. Ironic isn't? That this conspiracy theorist is actually a grand conspirator him/herself misleading and deceiving, and weaving a complex web over something that was already a complex web to begin with.

And just to note for completion's sake, there was already a trolling front lead by shittywebcomics.tumblr.com called "Blended Goose 2.br0" that I fell for hook line and sinker where I thought Chris Hall was trying to reboot Shredded Moose. There was even an Penny Arcade member named "Coach Brew" who did a comic about irl versions of the Penny Arcade duo getting their car blown up by Brew, and he got banned for that! I was felt so flabbergasted when I found out that was all fake and done by anonymous parodists, I thought it was for real!

If RWS was behind that too, I think my head is going to explode, and if RWS is Chris Hall, the world is gonna explode... And if RWS is me, and Chris Hall is she, and she is he and he is a she and she is a he and Liz is me, and Blunt Time is he/she, and if John Solomon is Charlie Brooker and Charlie Brooker is Maddox and Maddox is Josh Lesnick and we are all together in the mind of Charlie Brooker and we are the eggman and Charlie Brooker is the Walrus... Then I think the whole universe is going to explode!

Methinks that people are getting a bit too committed to this discussion. Also, Wall of Text posts aren't easy to read at all.

@Septimus Heap

I'm sorry if my recounting of this month's events was confusing and all over the place. It's been one crazy month. I never asked to get into a kudzu plot, but here we are and here I am, trying to dig myself out of a mountain of crazy. Jesus, the legacy of this horrible comic is just staggering.

You're wrong about one thing. Blunt Time is not Robert Stiles, Blunt Time is Liz Davis. Stiles has told me personally that she hates Shredded Moose and thinks its an abomination of misogyny.

I think it's a case of the Goons loving the man behind the comic, but not the comic itself. I think the guy is a surreal Christian Fundementalist who offends his ilk with his baffling art and paintings and thus turns the far right against each other through his work.

This guy, Dan Lacey, is either something akin to a sleeper agent Stephen Colbert, who knows how to disrupt the far right through absurdity disguised as an expression of insanity. Or is a completely sincere in his supposed beliefs, but comes across as so insane and so out there, that he makes his ilk look insane and laughable, making him an ironic friend to those who oppose Fundamentalism.

This entry is still odd though, because it comes across as, dare I say it, a "positive" example of the So Bad It's Horrible trope.

I don't think Grim Tales is deserving of being put on this page. So Bad, It's Horrible is meant for the absolute worst things that very few (if any) people like; last time I checked (years ago), it has its fans.

Other than the fact that it's fetish porn, what's so bad about Shadbase?

This review should answer that question http://badwebcomics.wikidot.com/shaedbase

Shadbase is more of a Love It or Hate It type of thing. Has about as many supporters as detractors. So no, we're not adding Shadbase here. At least for now.

I'd say add it. The guy's a pedophile, and a mysogonist. It's like with Billy the Heretic's fans; he has them, but they're hardly what you'd call mature. I guarantee you that you can't anything resembling a positive review anywhere.

@Aradials

"Want to know why the nazis like it? Not because of it's humor. Not because of it's art. not because of it's writing. It is only because it agrees with them. They only like it because it kisses their ass. Strokes their ego. Blows their horn. Sucks their dicks. That's all you have to do to win them over. It's that easy. You can make ANYTHING as lazily and terrible as you want for them, but if you add any message such as "dem jews be da evilz", "dem meksicuns be taking our jerbs" or "dose taowelheds muslims love satan", no matter how badly, blatantly or moronic, they will instantly like it. Why else do you think that nobody else likes the comic?"—Soran The Man, in regards to Billy the Heretic, and it's so-called "fanbase" of White Supremacists

Now with that quote in mind, both fanbases are probably immature, but people do at least like Shadbase for it's Art, including myself. So with that in mind, I think that separates Shadbase's fanbase from Billy the Heretic's fanbase in nature because since Soran The Man pointed out that the reason why Billy's fanbase is crap is because they are only liking the comic because it agrees with them. Not because of the Art, and not because of the writing. I like Shadbase, but only for the art, and other fans do as well. Of course, the Shadbase really is not a writer of any kind whatsoever, and if he was to ever to go out and make a serious work, he would need another writer. Noting that, I think we might be distanced from the vile likes of neo nazis.

Now while I do like Shadbase's artwork, his grimdark sensibilities, his love of death metal music and macabre imagery, and dare I say it, some of his fanservice pin ups. I honestly kind of wish he wouldn't waste all his talents so much on disturbing guro loli porn, and actually do a serious work of art of some kind. Still, I'm not the guy to judge because it seems he does make good money off doing the way things are currently done.

"I'd say add it. The guy's a pedophile, and a mysogonist. It's like with Billy the Heretic's fans; he has them, but they're hardly what you'd call mature. I guarantee you that you can't anything resembling a positive review anywhere. "

Do we know if Shadbase himself is a pedophile or a misogynist? Has he wrote a manifesto or blog post of some kind stating how much he hates women and wants to rape children? If so, could you link to it?

Also. the same for his fans as well, myself included, because I'm a half a fan.

I believe Shadbase and his fans are mostly just into shocking offensive humor just for the sake of offensiveness.

That's key a thing to take note here, sincerity, or the lack of it.

The big thing that separates Shadbase is that the whole comic as well as the pin ups are not serious declarations of anything. It's mostly just lowbrow disgusting stuff and porn and commissioned porn.

You see it's easy to pinpoint Shredded Moose as being misogynistic because that was a Penny Arcade style comic with two apparent self insert mary sue protagonists where one of the self insert protagonists made fun of women, called feminists "orcs" and "feminazis", acted like an entitled sophmoric douchebag, and raped an unconscious woman, and thus appeared glorified and triumphant afterwards, which made it all seem that these scenes were sincere sentiments from a beer addled misogynistic partyboy. Of course, Shredded Moose is also complicated in and of itself for another matter if we are to take into account the "Cereberus retcon" that was the latter half of the comic that tried to deconstruct the fratboy and negate all his apparent victories, but that is for another discussion.

My point is, at least for me, when a comic is just non stop random ultraviolence and hypersex, and it all just franchise parodies where all the characters act out of character and rape and cannibalize each other on the last panel, with no coherent over arching theme of any kind, then there is no serious sentiment other than the apparent message of "I'am the kid who draws flaming skulls in notebook while listening to Cannibal Corpse".

Shadbase comes across to me as a incredibly gifted and talented weirdo artist with an oddball sense of humor who is a little self aware of how weird, and offensive he comes across to people, and he just casually rolls with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0dH4P0jHJA

Plus the ultraviolence and hypersexualized imagery from my recollection is not glorified in any ways, it's portrayed as dark, gritty, and evil. Even the site's mascot is a grinning skeleton man inviting people to partake in dark desires. It is what you call macabre. Fans of this kind of thing, from what I am aware, don't go out to make the world like it is in such macabre works as Shadman's, most I'm pretty sure are fairly decent people in real life. The macabre is just a means of dark fantasy, a means of exploring the darker aspects of human nature through fictional artwork and imaginary situations at best, and grossing each other out with shock imagery at least.

So thus, to call the fanbase out as all being depraved misogynists, I think is a form of generalizing if you can consider that of his fanbase, people flock to him for different reasons.

While some are probably child molesting, women hating, misogynistic cannibals, most are just morbidly curious and others are just playful nightmare fuel station attendants.

I doubt that counts considering how they are far from the most mature bunch out there. You could jingle swastica-shaped keyrings infront of white supremacists faces and they would laugh like madmen! PS: the ammount of critics the comic has FAR outweighs the ammount of supporters it has.

I wonder if there are any White Supremacists who dislike Billy the Heretic? Because if the majority of them do enjoy it, would that count?

Also, while I'm sure there are plenty of stupid White Supremacists, most of them can at least string a sentence together!

I am not sure if we can keep it. The page explicitly says "Merely being offensive in its subject matter doesn't make it this"

Here is the thing, though.

Want to know why the nazis like it? Not because of it's humor. Not because of it's art. not because of it's writing. It is only because it agrees with them. They only like it because it kisses their ass. Strokes their ego. Blows their horn. Sucks their dicks. That's all you have to do to win them over. It's that easy. You can make ANYTHING as lazily and terrible as you want for them, but if you add any message such as "dem jews be da evilz", "dem meksicuns be taking our jerbs" or "dose taowelheds muslims love satan", no matter how badly, blatantly or moronic, they will instantly like it. Why else do you think that nobody else likes the comic?

So it is not "merely offensive". It is shit in every sence of the word. shit art, shit writing, shit characters, shit comedy, shit message, shit creator, and most fittlingy of all: a shit fanbase consisting of some of the lowest, hatefilled, paranoid, gullible and awful scum on the planet.

To make it short: Billy the Heretic stays on this page.

Here's the thing though: focus more the comic being terrible. I mean as someone involved in nationalist and other far-right communities, I can say that most of the movement just ignores Bt H because there's no humor and it does nothing to get any message across. Contrast Bt H with the stand-up work of Dieudonne, for instance. Dieudonne spreads a similiar message, but is a lot more funny and overall enjoyable to watch, even by people who aren't normally right-wing.

I think that it definately deserves at least one mention.

I remember it's page saying it had fans dedicated enough that have their own fandom nickname, so probably not.

Likewise, what happened to the entries about "Jack" and "US Angel Corps"?

Agreed. I'll remove it later.

I agree. For example, R.K Millholland said it's one of his favourite webcomics at the moment. Surely that means it can't be an example of failing to appeal to any niche, if the creator of one of the most popular webcomics likes it.

Oh, and Josh Lesnick. And a whole bunch of other people. Seriously, it doesn't belong here. Can we just remove it?

It's really more of a Your Milage May Vary, perhaps a Base B Reaker, but universally agreed to be horrible? God no. That's just dumb.

For me, there was something very subtly disturbing about the art style on a fundamental level. I'm not entirely sure what it was, possibly the lips and skin tones, but I'm not sure. The art style didn't have any immediately disturbing (i.e. Smiledog) or immediately bad (i.e. Sonichu) qualities, it was just... subtly wrong.

OH GOD

AN ELDRITCH ABOMINATION IS ON THE INTERNET

AND IT TOOK THE FORM OF LESBIAN PORN

Why can't it be both? Opinions will differ and inevitably some will find it one or the other. From what I gather however, there are alot more people who consider it horrible than good. The fact that some people find it So Bad, It's Good shouldn't exclude it from the list, since any webcomic, no matter how bad, will have at least a couple of fans.

I'm the one who added that little line, and jeez, it was just a throwaway line. I've read a good deal of the comic and noted how it seems to take a lot of Furry Fandom habits and beliefs and make them look even more ridiculous, but there's no way I'd ever read it again. I felt like I'd been defiled and caught diabetes.

I felt like I was raped by a Care Bear.

So Bad Its Horrible is for works that have no fans whatsoever. Not simply because a large group of people find it "horrible". If something has some sort of following (regardless of whether they genuinely enjoy or because they find it So Bad, It's Good) it can't be listed here.

I know we say that, but really, everything can have an ironic fandom that finds it So Bad, It's Good, so maybe we should just get rid of the entire category.

As long as it isn't simply boring, I think anything can be So Bad, It's Good if the viewer has a sufficiently dark sense of humor and pain tolerance. If the entirety of the readerbase consists of the few ironic readers who can stomach it (which Kit N Kay Boodle is very much so), said readerbase isn't enough to redeem something out of So Bad Its Horrible status.

If it's liked, if accidentally, it can't be here can it?
I find it highly enjoyable, but for all the wrong reasons. Narm Charm, anybody?
If people are laughing, but for all the wrong reasons, bottom line is, they're still laughing.
Tack me on the list of contestors.

errrr....no. It has a sizable fanbase, and is actually pretty good. :/

I'm not sure that it should be listed at all. I'm not talking about my personal opinion, I'm talking about the fact that when it was announced that Ian would be joining the comic there was quite a bit of positive response largely based on the reception of Other-M. Not everyone loved it, some people hated it (obviously), but its fans were hardly a tiny minority. Why would it warrant an inclusion here? Strikes me as Opinion Myopia.

Except that comic isn't bad just for its political content, but even when you talk about style, substance, pacing, and dialogue, it's still horrible. Left Behind is a PUBLISHED WORK, which means despite its controversial content, it's gone through Quality assurance, checking, and editing. Billy The Heretic? Not so much.

Perhaps you should have opened a discussion about removing that part instead of automatically doing so. Regardless, let's have the discussion now. Troopers: yay or nay on this?

I don't think something should be removed because it has a "fanbase" through Preaching to the Choir. Should Battlefield Earth (the movie) be removed because it has a following among Scientologists?

Does it have a following among Scientologists?

Seriously, we have to be careful about ignoring the choir. We need to have an idea of how big a niche can be before we can stop ignoring it...

Left Behind is popular (at least in the manner intended) primarily among its choir. Those books got written and published so fast that the QA was primarily to make sure that everything was spelled right, grammatically passable, and doctrinally correct. (For instance, Slacktivist noted that the first book, at least, both spent more time on geographical matters than the average reader would want and got the geography wrong.) But its choir is big enough to make the series a bestseller!

The measures for webcomics are less concrete. You can't always tell clicks from Bile Fascination from clicks from genuine interest. So it does matter how big that fanbase is.

I put it back, with the added bullets that Sonichu has become to gays and women what Billy the Heretic is to Jews. It's more than just Chris's personal life, he himself has displayed fierce sexism and homophobia inside his comic, so it easily warrants an inclusion back in.

Though the natter is horribly long and just complain about Chris's shit and whatever, the main entry gives enough reasons. The original entry - but only the original - should be restored.

I also agree with bringing back the Sonichu entry as I was just reading Asperchu and then when I clicked back, it was gone

Edit: I read it under the So Bad Its Horrible Webcomics entry. Correction added

No, don't restore Sonichu!!!

I was already suspicious of the work's place here when Sonichu got a Narm listing. Good works can be injured by Narm, and bad works can be leavened by it; but, since Narm is funny, it is a bright spot and a redemptive factor, and so most varieties of Horrible work can't have it.

But the kicker to me was the (continued) existence of a Fanfic Recommendations page for Sonichu, complete with fanfics. For someone to write a fanfic of a work, there must be something worth working with. Now, to the best of my knowledge, all important characters in Sonichu are either original in a cut&paste way or based on real people; that is, this is not a true Derivative Work. So, if there is something in there worth writing fanfic about, then there is something in there worth reading it for other than simple Bile Fascination. Ergo, it cannot be Horrible — just bad, possibly pushing So Bad, It's Good.

ETA: I meant don't restore it to this page. I'm in favor of a page for it existing if the flames can be kept down.

Except Sonichu "fan"work is all about making fun of Chris, torturing the characters or deconstructing the setting. This (NSFW) is what the typical Sonichu fic look like.

Restore Sonichu.

When your fanbase consists entirely of trolls, you are the definition of So Bad It's Horrible. There has been possilby one person who actually liked Sonichu, and Chris thought she was a troll. He deserves to have it.

As the person who made the Fanfic Recommendations page for Sonichu, I believe that it deserves to be on this list. Ordinarily, yes, the existence of fanfic would mean that at least one person enjoys the work and/or thinks there is material to work off of, but this webcomic is... Different. From what I've seen, Sonichu fanworks tend to be in one of three groups, with the occasional overlap: deconstructions (Asperchu, Chris Gets Laid, Capering Berries), grim gorefests (Sonichu Finale, The Death of Sonichu, A Very Sonichu Adventure) or Refuge in Audacity comedy (Moon-Pals, Sonichu is Dead, Sonichu: The Animated Series)... Actually, the gore group seems to go will with the other two, the aforementioned Chris Gets Laid and Sonichu is Dead being examples. The only "honest" fanwork I can think of for Sonichu is the remake and the fan promo, and even then it's obvious that they've been done for the lulz (the latter especially, with the line "No Darkies, Jerkop!" and all).

TL;DR: Sonichu fanwork only exists to mock Chris and his creation.

(By the way, can't Bile Fascination apply even when the work isn't So Bad It's Good? With Sonichu, it's like a radioactive trainwreck: looking at it will melt your eyes out, but you can't not look at it.)

... Oh god, why am I arguing over a shitty webcomic drawn by a manchild? orz

Yeah, Bile Fascination does apply to Horrible works — else we would not have this index at all. We would be trying our hardest to pretend these works were never made if Bile Fascination didn't apply.

Sorry about that. <feels guilty>

I concur. Just because its writer is a loser surrounded by some sort of surprisingly interesting bile-fascinated cult doesn't mean that his comic doesn't suck ass. It's drawn using MARKERS, for the love of the FSM! MARKERS!

Indeed, the reasons to drop Sonichu's entry from this don't make sense to me. As of writing this there isn't a So Bad, It's Good entry for Sonichu, and it genuinely is thought by most to be So Bad Its Horrible (hell, I think it's the Most Triumphant Example). As for it causing people to attack the creator as well as his creation, well we just edit out the former whenever it appears.

How about this compromise: just include a link to the Sonichu TV Tropes page from So Bad Its Horrible and add an instruction to not add anything else 'cos there's no need-it's all there in the page!