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Dethroning Moment of Suck. - No ALLCAPS, no bold, and no italics unless it's the title of a work. We are not yelling the DMoSs out loud.
- deeman45: David Willis' Shortpacked! has many, many problems. Many strips are out-and-out attacks against people Willis doesn't like: the Straw Fan, the Strawman Political, the religious. But I still found many of his strips clever and funny. But this
was really too much. The men's movement isn't about ignoring women's issues; nor does it concern making every conversation center around male problems. Intimidating women is right out. What especially irks me is that he has the douchebag-of-the-week talk about a real problem before setting him up as a whiny strawman. Apparently getting upset over being blamed for your own sexual assault is just a sign that you're a self-centered whiner.- Sunchet: It worse that you think. According to this strip, Men's rights activists think that women being blamed for their own sexual assault is just as bad men being portrayed as idiots in commercials. Which simply makes just as much sense as portraying feminist saying "I know its horrible that underaged kid has to pay support if he's raped by woman and she gets pregnant. Its just as bad as movies failing Bechdel test" . MRA movement doesnt claim that these two are equal. Maybe Willis met few douche bags on Internet who said something like this, but its not Ok to portray them as representative faces of movement. Its just gender-reversed Straw Feminist trope. Whatever is your opinion about MRAs this is just wrong to put such disgusting worlds into their mouths.
- Jonn: It also contributes to the idea that men should go talk about men problems somewhere where women aren't talking about women problems, and that attempting to do so is necessarily trying to drown women out. The sad thing is that wasn't the last straw for me. That was when he dismissed people who didn't understand his comics as "imaginary". And the fans agree with him. As if he never could be wrong in premise, delivery, or both. The very next day, he seems to have a totally distorted view of the comic, much less the generally positive reaction to it. The comic in question wasn't about "justifying sexist attitudes", it was specifically about how people who don't understand or agree with Willis don't matter, as far as he's concerned. He literally said so. Which means that he doesn't actually care about convincing people or effecting change, just being "right". Unless he honestly thinks that anyone who doesn't understand or agree with him is actually sexist.
- dmh3000 - While I love Willis, he has said numerous times in response to people who point out that the Mike/Amber romance had a horrific start that he thinks the argument of 'reverse the genders' is bullshit. Despite being a feminist, he still subscribes to the idea that women cannot hurt men, and by extension, men cannot be raped, which is disturbing.
- EchoingSilence - I tend to avoid political stuff now. But Willis is wrapping up his Webcomic and one of his plans is getting Robin and Leslie to have a kid. Perfectly fine. But how he's going about this just reeks of "easy way out". The plan for two lesbians to have a kid is to go to their regular super scientist, Joe, who deals in robotics and purely robotics by the way, and ask him for how they can have a baby, he spits out some data on a tablet instantly and says that because Robin was augmented by aliens, she can give birth easier and quicker (within 3 weeks), my issue is that Joe was never revealed to have anything within in genetics in the first place so this feels like a cop out. Secondly, Willis could have had the two go for adoption and have them adopt a kid and go through the trials of being two lovers in a society that says that "Gay people shouldn't adopt kids" and even finding the kid perfect for their family, but instead they go the super science route to make it easier. Third, where did the info that Robin can have a kid a lot quicker come from? Like when was that a concept? Why is this a concept? Willis is just going for the Ass Pull to make his webcomic end a lot faster and make it end on a "high" note.
- Larkmarn: Honestly, I was pretty sick of the political stuff, but I accepted it. It's his work, if he wants to shove in an Author Tract or Author Filibuster that has nothing to do with toys, so be it. But the Faz/Palin ass shove was just so juvenile (and treated as a CMOA) and pointless that it almost made me sympathize for the GOP. Almost. Okay, not really, but still. It was bad and made me stop reading the comic altogether.
- Leyviur: I wasn't a fan of the political stuff because my views of it were way more complicated than the boxes Willis kept hurling at me from beyond the pages, but it was the infamous False Equivalence strip that broke the camel's back. In one fell swoop, Willis managed to a) make broad assumptions about the type of character men of all stripes identify with and revere, b) make broad assumptions about the type of character heterosexual women of all stripes are attracted to, and c) prove with points a and b that he doesn't give half a toss about equality, just being 'right.' As well, the comments section, where Willis would constantly delete comments that disagreed or gave criticism, no matter how constructive or polite while at the same time showering praise on fans and 'allies,' had become grossly hostile to anybody viewed as an 'outsider,' even if said outsiders had been there since the comics' inception. This hostility was largely fomented by Willis himself being a toxic person both in and out of his site.
- InTheGallbladder: This one. I don't know what's worse: that he countered accusations of relying upon the strawman argument with a strawman argument, that it didn't promptly hit the cutting room floor the moment he realized he was recycling a premise, or that this was the premise he chose to recycle.
- Dr Gonzo: The opening of the final arc, with "Whitney Mc Jority" complaining about diversity, and Leslie and Robin hiring more "brown people" (a term which is an issue in and of itself) out of spite. The whole thing reeked of Willis giving himself a pat on the back for having a (admittedly refreshing) diverse cast. UPDATE: Apparently, Willis reads this page, because that line has been changed to "diverse people." Trying to dodge a bullet, Willis?
- Fauxlosophe: Building on this, I followed Willis for a while so it took a three part-er to really get me to set his comic down, which boil down to him being every negative stereotype of an SJW there is. The Soggies script over all made Willis feel more exploitative and poorly done than anyone; it is one thing to try very hard to write from the perspective outside of white straight male, it's another to make an effort to diversify skin colour in your cast even if you don't focus on it. Both of these are nice to see in their own way. Willis however took a third path which I've never seen so openly done; literally playing minority bingo by listing off as many minority categories as possible, occasionally tossing in a half done tumblr level rant on an odd problem they occasionally experience and then very publicly and self-indulgently congratulating himself on not just having white people. Except there's no difference between these characters aside from the odd remark; Daniel, David and Ken are all very very similar personality wise (I compel any of you to name one difference) except David came later and so is gay and jewish and Ken came even later so he is an actual /visible minority/ (which aside from ambiguously ethnic Kaz took most of the run to show up). Fuck off Willis, you don't get the high ground here. Similarly; for all his clammering about LGBT groups, the majority of them represented are far and away attractive young lesbians. David was the only semi-developed gay guy for a long time, aside from one uncomfortable threesome joke. While he pays lip-service to SJW causes, after a while, it definitely starts to feel like a way that he can act morally superior for drawing cute girls making out. Finally, up until this, the politics comics never bothered me too much since I identify with the left and am broadly sympathetic to what he is trying to say. But he is shit at conveying his point (as all of the above will contend). What gets me is that, not only does he occasionally interrupt his story for mediocre arguments, but he'll personally wade into the section and phrase things as antagonistically as possible to gain some imaginary moral highground over them. Willis published this on his final post note; "Sure, I'm still an asshole, but I like to think I'm a slightly better-targeted asshole these days". No Willis, you're throwing temper tantrums at people in the forums and are a relatively high profile example of an asshole who gives individuals who are on the fence and considering both arguments a very personal reason to hate the views you claim to be espousing. Do us all a favour and just admit you want to draw lesbians in college and get off the podium so no one has to deal with your bullshit.
- PrinnyRamza I have no problem with the transformers jokes or the rage against really weird fans because well honestly... but when it was announced that the comic was coming to an end I was ready to see some character development. I mean he just introduced a whole new cast of characters, each of which at this point only had a short storyline which seemed to be the 'beginning' of their character development. Then he came out with this strip and immediate with this one. And guess what he wasted the last twenty strips with? Seriously if you wanted to end Shortpacked, you should have ended it with the wedding.
- Tropers//DCorp123 Look, I love this comic a lot, but man did that final chapter suck! The second to last chapter was amazing and would have worked as a perfect end to the comic, but Willis decided to end it on a ridiculous Bolivian Army Ending just to make some random Soggies joke that wasn't even that funny. This is easily strange given that the final chapter of It's Walky was utterly amazing.
