Reviews Webcomic / Ctrl Alt Del

First of all, most of the hate is derived from the way the creator, Tim Buckley, flaunts his ego around. Second, people were not offended by the miscarriage. It is just not something you should place on a comic about video games. Third, some of the jokes would have been funny if he did a long list of fixes (remove wall of text, don't explain the joke, do research, have a lesser panels, add subtlety when needed, actually talk about video games, actually have a joke, etc.).

Well, I've never been on the forums, so I can't say I've ever really noticed his ego. I have seen his twitter, and he seems nice enough on it. As for the jokes, they're mostly hit and miss for me, but I will say I find....at least a majority decent.

As far as I can see it, his supposed inflated ego is more of an Informed Flaw.

The trouble with the miscarriage wasn't that it was offensive, but that it was melodramatic. It was a case of First And Ten Syndrome, because the existing story and Buckley's writing didn't support a Cerebus Syndrome.

Personally, I've derived a fair amount of amusement from the comic; I thought it started out okay (although my standards were a bit lower at the time,) and got somewhat better over time, but eventually entered a decline in quality, so I dropped it, and haven't looked back since.

I think the stories of Tim Buckley's ego are probably at least in part true, but they're more of an excuse to hate the comic than a reason. People resent the comic for being popular while not meeting their artistic standards, and they look for more reasons to criticize it.

^^ Go to bed, Tim.

Those who are better than most people at something and aren't afraid to flaunt this fact around tend to be hated by the jealous.

^ The problem is that Buckley is not particularly good. He is, at his best, "adequate", and does not really have anything to have his ego in. Many of his peers in the webcomic business, especially those who have met him in real life, have either criticized or made fun of him for being lazy and a egoistical prick to his fans, and quite a few of those people are more successful and (feel to disregard this if you think it is too "subjective") talented than him.

Quality is determined by the audience and popularity. And he has a quite a sizable fanbase. That is proof that he has quality to go along with his bragging.

And of course, there's always someone better, but that doesn't invalidate him.

^"Quality is determined by the audience and popularity", that is a classic fallacy and you better know it. Sure, popularity might be ONE of the criteria when judging the quality of something, but you can not use only that to claim that something is of "good" quality.

And once again, I think that Buckley is, at his best, "adequate", and CAD is hard to defend as anything other than a lazy piece of work. The only thing that makes me truly angry about Buckley, is that he have managed to find such an easily exploitable and pleasable fanbase, which he seemingly can abuse and ignore as much as he wants and still turn in a profit, while other, more hardworking artists are still struggling every day to make money from their craft.

When deciding on something subjective such as the quality of a webcomic, then popularity (The good kind, not the You Failed so Bad that you became Popular-kind) becomes the main determining factor of quality. As long as there's a large number of people who think it's good, then who are you to say that it isn't? There really aren't any objective ways you can judge how good a webcomic is.

You can still argue that there's things out there that would be popular if more people knew about them, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a large fanbase that thinks this webcomic is good.

It's a reality you'll have to deal with when you realize that viewers are easily exploitable and somewhat moronic. It's the reason why so many works with much more thought and work put into them get passed up by ones that abuse consumer psychology.

"There really aren't any objective ways you can judge how good a webcomic is."

Counterpoint: the typical CAD strip is in 3/4, uses very static poses and is often copy-pasted, if that isn't considered lazy on both an artistic and objective level, then I don't know what is.

Laziness and lack in quality aren't the same thing.

Ah, but just like popularity, laziness is one of the criteria when judging the quality of a work. Wouldn't you agree?

The only criteria that's being used for judging is the number of people who think it's good. And popularity generally means a lot of people think the work is good.

And we are back to the popularity fallacy again. Lots of flies likes eating crap, ego crap is good food.

The popularity fallacy only applies when the subject is objective.

Are you trying to say that your likes and tastes are somehow superior to everyone elses'?

Yeah, I am kind of an elitist jerk, but I am somewhat okay with that. But I think I got to bow out of this discussion now, it seems to be running in circles.

I never said there was anything wrong with being an elitist jerk.

But it would be in your own best interest to realize that many others don't hold your likes/tastes as highly as you hold your own.

Popularity does not equal quality.

Primary example: Twilight.

Case closed.

And here we have another "My tastes in art and literature is somehow worth more than millions of fans" person.

I guess some people just missed the part in childhood development stage where they're supposed to grow out of egocentrism.

Everyone hated the miscarriage thing because it happened to Buckley's girlfriend in real life, and was quickly followed by a philosophical rant that just screamed "douche" about why he had to dump her. Right after she miscarried.

"I guess some people just missed the part in childhood development stage where they're supposed to grow out of egocentrism."

And I guess someone missed the adolescence development stage where you learn to think critically and realizes that the "But everybody is doing it/got one" line of thinking is fallacious.

Seriously, you need to stop being smug about your complete submission to the "popularity = better than" line of thinking, because that is not very mature either.

And it bugs me to the point where I am writing on something I promised myself I was done with. :\

Don't forget buckley charging $120 for a season dvd of the animated series (12 incredibly short episodes, most of which consist of the intro sequence and ending credits.)

"The only criteria that's being used for judging [quality] is the number of people who think it's good."

No. Just no. Quality and popularity are simply not the same thing, the old "there is no accounting for taste" adage is usually stretched way too far. If you think the Godfather is a bad movie you're wrong. If you think that Richard III is a bad play you're wrong. If you think CAD is a good comic you're wrong. Even if you don't want to take it to such manichean levels, the fact that we have different words for "quality" and "popularity" is quite decent a nod towards the merit and importance of that distinction.

Now excuse me, I have to polish my monocle.

Okay so Hasfet, lets break this down. Quality means the ability of something to fits its purpose, roughly right? A quality candle gives good light, a quality bike is smooth to ride, comfortable to sit on. Quality shears cut hedges well. Quality mouses have lots of buttons and don't break.

So a quality piece of entertainment, is surely a work that succeeds in entertaining people thoroughly, and a quality piece of entertainment developed for mass consumption, should also succeed in entertaining a large amount of people.

Twilight has exceeded it's aim to entertain large amounts of people hugely, in every way. For the purpose to which Twilight was created it's has achieved it's goals to an extent rarely seen by any similar thing ever. We're talking Harry Potter, Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings as it's only contenders here. It's clearly not just been due to outside influences because fans have returned for repeated books and repeated films. Moreso these fans have read all sorts of books but become rabid about this one.

Now there are books/films/music that don't aim to entertain large amounts of people (or at least when they fail to entertain large amounts of people, claim that that was so) and so their purpose is different and quality means something different there. But the fact is, that these pieces of media aren't undiscovered gems that people would enjoy if they ever sat down and watch because lots of people sit down and watch arty films and think 'wow that was a boring piece of pretentious rubbish'. They fail absolutely utterly in the principle of entertaining people.

Now what grounds are you going to present, that we should judge a work only on it's artistic quality, ignoring it's purpose and it's ability to fulfill that purpose, that can't equally be applied the other way.

Even moreso, how many gaming webcomics can you name that aim to achieve artistic merit?

Please note, I'm not defending CAD as quality, it's not, it's + or - mildly entertaining and my opinion is that of roughyl halfish of the CAD reviews that it's not brilliant, but it's not hate worthy either and most of the hate has been based off opinions of the author (a bad criteria to start off with) which haven't really been sufficiently proved. I certainly respect the idea that people don't like it, don't want to read it and maybe wouldn't even recommend it to other people, but it's not hate worthy either.

Finally I'm not even really arguing that there we shouldn't judge things to artistic merit. I'm normally of your opinion, but I realised there was a surprising lack of weight to those arguments and I'd been working off an assumption that I've never really analysed critically before, and I'm interested in your response to it

No. Just no. Quality and popularity are simply not the same thing, the old "there is no accounting for taste" adage is usually stretched way too far. If you think the Godfather is a bad movie you're wrong. If you think that Richard III is a bad play you're wrong. If you think CAD is a good comic you're wrong. Even if you don't want to take it to such manichean levels, the fact that we have different words for "quality" and "popularity" is quite decent a nod towards the merit and importance of that distinction.

It's not me, everyone else just has a stupid tastes!

Thanks for the laugh.

I think there are possibly more productive ways to have said that if you want the conversation to move on in a meaningful way Medder

In an elitist fanboy's mind, the world revolves around himself. You cannot have a productive or meaningful conversation with one.

I know it's easy to take sides and get caught up in the moment, especially when you've only got another persons words to go by, I've been a prick to plenty of people before (in fact I got called out on it in a CAD thread) but do you honestly mean what you type? I know it's hard to back down, or take the loss of face doing it but I really think you're better than the stuff you just said

@Tomwithnonumbers

"a quality bike is smooth to ride" Exactly, not one that sells best. The big mac is probably the most popular restaurant food in the world - I doubt many people would agree it's the best food. There is nothing wrong with enjoying it (this is so obvious it pains me to have to write this so someone won't accuse me of saying just that,) but claiming it's the best because it sells the most is just Insane Troll Logic. That was my main problem with the post I was replying to, the idea that products including entertainment/art can't be evaluated critically and that popularity MUST be our guiding principle. In that case why have reviews at all? why not just have a counter of issues sold/website hits?

"... a quality piece of entertainment, is surely a work that succeeds in entertaining people thoroughly, and a quality piece of entertainment developed for mass consumption, should also succeed in entertaining a large amount of people." Creators and consumers have different goals. As a consumer, I don't care how many other people were entertained - just how thoroughly it entertained me. The kind of quality I'm talking about is the capability of entertaining the individual consumer: me or a potential reader- if I'm writing a review. Saying that something is popular because it's good and that it's good because it's popular - is just one big ringelspiel of circular logic.

" ... They fail absolutely utterly in the principle of entertaining people ..." But surely you won't despite the claim that Richard III is far more capable of entertaining a person than Twilight when both are enjoyed to their full extent? Sure, less people have the willingness, time and curiosity to enjoy the former than the latter- but that doesn't negate the fact that as a source of entertainment and art it runs much, much deeper. Again as with the Big Mac, I am not saying you can't enjoy Twilight or that that enjoying it makes you an pleb- just that there *is* a way to order things by inherent quality as opposed to merely popularity.

"... Now what grounds are you going to present, that we should judge a work only on it's artistic quality, ignoring it's purpose and it's ability to fulfill that purpose, that can't equally be applied the other way. ... I'm normally of your opinion, but I realised there was a surprising lack of weight to those arguments and I'd been working off an assumption that I've never really analysed critically before, and I'm interested in your response to it." I never said works should only be measured by their artistic quality- only (for the third time) that they CAN be measured by it. Can I make a definition? "Art is the act of conveying meaning (mainly logos) and experience (mainly pathos.) We all crave those things, so why not get them, from time to time, in big and condensed chunks instead of piecemeal. Not always (if I'm tired I'd rather watch The Hangover than The Conformist) but when we have the time and energy and, most importantly the need, for it. When you condense things they becomes much more transparent and reveal many things you'd normally not notice - hence: "Art is life with the boring bits cut out. I think that every work of entertainment is art. The one branded as "just entertainment" is simply particularly forgettable art- noting wrong with that, but why deprive yourself of the really good stuff? There is nothing wrong with walks in the park, but why not occasionally go camping? If you don't feel like it- okay. You'll miss out, but okay, maybe you just don't feel like it- just don't go around saying that Central Park is the same as Yellowstone or the Amazonas and not expect someone to call bullshit (this reffering to the guy I was originally replying to, not you.)

As for my previous comment: I was having a quick jab (as the monocle line was meant to indicate) at that previous post that decried the very idea of criticism. I wasn't trying to put out a cogent point, but now that you asked for one, I am more than happy to oblige.

@Medder "Thanks for the laugh." You're welcome. It was meant to be mildly funny.

"the world revolves around himself." Off topic: Isn't it "around him"? Could be wrong though, I'm not speaking English for very long.

^ Spacing, punctuation and grammar errors galore. I wasn't aware you can't edit comments anymore (or was that always like that?) so I posted this as a draft, sorry for the mess to those reading it.

I wonder if the ability to edit comments was removed due to abuse. There was an incident some time back where a book author, upset at his book being mocked and criticized on the site, not only edited every article that mentioned it and blanked the article on the book, but also removed a review comment mentioning his book.

I don't know if that particular incident is what sparked the removal of the ability to edit comments, but it's actually the only example of abuse of this feature I'd ever seen. You used to be able to edit other people's comments, and that's what this guy did.

Not the only example. Someone was trolling the Mass Effect 3 reviews.

And the thing about that is, if you have posted a new comment too, no-ones going to look and theoretically you might never find that your comments been changed. It's a shame we can't edit our own comments though (but again there's potential for abuse there)

@Hasfet, that feels like a fairly cogent idea to me. There are some elements I'd disagree with, I think the level people have enjoyed the Harry Potter and Twilight books has gone beyond the pleasure that could be gained with Shakespeare if they studied and changed who they were, until they found enjoyment in that. And I feel a step has been lost, the difference between the bike/big mac situation is that there are two ways of gauging popularity, frequency and popular reaction. Frequency I agree is rubbish and not a sensible position unless you have others things to support it. But popular reaction is derided in art criticism and I'm not sure that it isn't more important than artistic merit. The difference is, everyone eats in Mc Donalds, but no-one you poll would say it's the best restaurant and as such doesn't have the popular opinion. Whereas with Twilight, if you polled people on their favourite books, a large percent would say Twilight.

And I'm not so sure that can be discounted. Because artistic merit is very much a small group of people inventing their own rules for what makes something good and then excluding the large amount of material and evidence that doesn't agree with their rules from counting.

I think their needs to be some balance between the two. The truth is Heart Of Darkness will never inspire and be beloved by as many people as Twilight, no matter what opportunity it's given. If every person was forced to read it, Twilight would still win out. There needs to be a way that we can understand that Shakespeare has some quality but also that Twilight has a unique quality too. (And don't get me wrong, a couple of years ago I was into twi-bashing hard :D I've just realised I have to move past that)

On a personal note, I really do dislike Shakespeare. Stupid guy didn't even give the best character from Romeo and Juliet an ending! He just forgot about him, left him on some park bench waiting for Romeo and Juliet trapped by events. How can Romeo and Juliet conclude when the heart of Benvolio is cut out half way through? :D

"the world revolves around himself." Off topic: Isn't it "around him"? Could be wrong though, I'm not speaking English for very long.

I don't think so. "around him" could refer to someone else, while "himself" refers to the elitist fanboy.

@Tomwithnonumbers

I agree with the point about distinguishing "frequency" and "popular reaction."

As for artistic merit being an illusion, I don't. As I said entertainment and art draw on the same fundamental principles, pathos and logos, to "deliver their payloads." What we tend to call art is usually something that weaves these two so skillfully as to form a bigger picture, something that uses them to incorporate a wider range of thoughts and experiences in a coherent way- and thus allows for more complete and detailed communication between reader and writer. If the writer has something to add rather than to copy, the result is expanded horizons. This requires a lot of skill, thus is rarer and should be cherished and sought out. Plus, by simple economic principles is more valuable from a pure supply/demand perspective. What we tend to call entertainment are simply the means for joy - thus well made art falls into this category by default. What we are talking about (Twilight etc.) is decidedly in the entertainment set, but not in the art set. It is simply to lean in quality, too stale, and fails to reach critical mass. I'd describe it as the difference between new experience and nostalgia. The distinction is not a hard boundary, and in a way not a boundary at all- it is simply looking at the same thing with two different priorities in mind. If Twilight was less full of cliches, Purple Prose and was more original in exploring it's themes and characters there is no reason why it couldn't be art. In a way fine-art goes with you when you are done with it, not-so-fine-art goes back on the shelf with some vapors flying about for a couple days or weeks, that's my personal criterium for distinguishing them. Or, if you want; pure entertainment imitates life in fast forward, art explains it through observation. I think the two experiences are different enough to warrant the distinction and that there are indicators that allow you to make the distinction, in others words, I don't think that (literary) criticism is a crook of shit. Sometimes it goes to far (the whole "top 10 list" epidemic,) sometimes its institution are too authoritative but it's still worth pursuing.

You are persuading me, but the problem is I'm not convinced that if Twilight were 'better' it would have been so much loved