Yeah, I'm archive binging this thing right now, and this is what I see:
- strange distended art, which might have worked had not the artist decided to also use
- really ridiculous framing in every panel
- TOO MANY PHOTOSHOP FILTERS. Granted this is kind of a Berserk Button for me, but really, lay off the lens flare.
- Fauxlosophic Narration up the wazoo
- no real story to speak of
- what the hell is a "non-denominational beverage"?
- cringe-inducing phrases like "ZOMG You realize you're violating my end-user license-agreement???"
- fanservice? maybe
- some sort of point trying to be made, i guess
edited 11th Dec '10 11:23:00 PM by merton
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet....and now I have read a bit further and gotten to "WHAT THE WIGGY? This place is JIZZNORMOUS yo." That sounds like something out of Sweet Bro And Hella Jeff.
edited 11th Dec '10 11:27:21 PM by merton
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.Wow, the protagonist of this thing is a truly massive Mary Sue. So she just magically turns that stripper schoolgirl's life around with some ad-agency platitudes and then disappears into a cloud of sparklies? And I do mean ad-agency platitudes; the more I read this comic the more I feel like the next press of the "next" button will take me to a page where I'm suppose to input my credit card number.
I'm sorry for turning this thread into some sort of demented liveblog. I guess you probably don't want to hear another person hating on this comic.
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet."You rock my world, Sarah...you're AWESOME.CON"
How does someone type that sentence, look at it, and think to themselves, "Man, that's good writing! I should publish that on the internet so everyone can see it!"
Okay, I'll stop now for real.
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.So I think this thing is trying to make some sort of point about modern culture but I'm not sure what due to the obnoxious obfuscatory style and it comes off more as one person's barely-concealed wangsting.
I said I'd stop and I didn't. Sigh. You are entitled to hate me now.
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.Finished it. Nothing really to say that I haven't already said.
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.Okay, one more thing: for someone who complains so much about objectification of women and people selling out in order to be popular on the internet, the guy who makes this thing sure has drawn a lot of porn of his characters.
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.I'll add myself to the list of people who like Sarah Zero. The sheer creativity in the use of page design, panel layout, and use of visual metaphor more than make up for its shortcomings in narrative. Very few webcomics try to do anything truly artistic, but Sarah Zero not only pulls it off, it succeeds in doing so.
Also, for those complaining that Sarah Zero is a Mary Sue, there are just as many parts about the character being self-conscious and having trouble managing her relationships and doubting her acts.
We Are The Wyrecats Needs Tropes!Okay, right now, I'm on page 242.
So far... it's been unique, for the lack of a better word. The whole thing is too different, too distant from the conventional webcomic for there to be an objective analysis.
Now, personally, I find this to have a very painful pacing. Not to mention the use of Photoshop filters. You can certainly see the author is way above the average when it comes to digital art, but some of the pages are just too messy, and makes it needlessly hard to read. It was as if the pages were designed like that for the sake of it. Like that, without accomplishing anything.
Another aspect of this that I didn't like (up until this point, anyway) are the characters. I dpn't understand why, perhaps it is the way this comic progresses, how they're introduced. I'm simply apathetic to everything and everyone there. I didn't care if Sarah was sinking on the first pages. I didn't know her and wasn't even sure if I was supposed to care until the club scene. And even then I didn't care for her, nor was I interested in her.
Anyway, these are my impressions on the webcomic so far. Sorry for the rant. Hopefully, this will start getting better.
I apologize if reviving the thread was a nettiquette faux pas. I just thought the strip was unique enough that it merited the discussion, regardless of anyone's individual opinions of it.
We Are The Wyrecats Needs Tropes!Sarah Zero is basically So Bad, It's Good, especially when you learn about the author's adventures on the Something Awful forums.
edited 18th Mar '12 2:05:00 PM by silver2195
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.I actually think that Sarah Zero is a genuinely good comic, albeit an uneven one; moments of true brilliance amidst inconsistent, incoherent, and often self-conscious avalanches of random content. It's like if Seth Mac Farlane, instead of doing prime-time animated sitcoms, decided to do a webcomic and got obsessed with postmodernism and media theory along the way.
As for the author himself; does anyone have any relevant links? This wouldn't be the first time a creator I enjoy ends up being a Jerk Ass.
We Are The Wyrecats Needs Tropes!.....wow, his response is the kind of thing I'd expect from Christian Weston Chandler.
We Are The Wyrecats Needs Tropes!This is the first time I've ever read a webcomic where the apparent goal of the artist/author is to annoy his readers. I'd file this one under 'deliberate mind screw' and 'take that.'
To be fair, I do understand what is going on— it's an attempt to use the medium of the webcomic to make a 'statement' about life, art, love, and fame. It's just that the artist's ambition exceeds his ability. Which isn't a bad thing: writing and drawing are both technical skills, and so a certain extent can be developed with practice and repetition.
You can create a wacky anime like "BO BO BO BO BO BO BO" and have your characters do surreal, Far-Side type things. Or you can attempt to have a plot and actually try to make a serious statement about life. This artist attempts to do both simultaneously without quite grasping the tropes (no pun intended) of either style.
Now, this sort of thing can be done... "Ally Mac Beal" was an attempt to tell a dramatic tale of the life of a young female lawyer, but there were plenty of comic characters (like the guy Fish who would end up being the old Professor on 'Numb3rs') and plenty of Family Guy-style cutaway gags and fantasy moments. 'Dream On' was a show that was on about 25 years ago that did a similar merger of such things, and 'Herman's Head' also had plenty of inner-monologue imagine spots. In webcomics, probably the most successful one that I can think of that is what Sarah Zero was aiing for is 'Shortpacked.' Yeah, there's plenty of main story about the store and the people in it, but suddenly you'll have Batman in Space or some such thing.
In my opinion, where 'Sarah Zero' went wrong— and why most people either don't read it or end up hating it— is because the artist first failed to give us a character worth identifying with, and secondly because the artist is too obviously underestimating the readership. Dexter and Walter White are psychos, so the problem isn't with Sarah Zero being a bitch/Mary Sue/lead singer/Ally Mc Beal wannabe. It's in how she's presented to us. As to the second point— well, we've all grown up with Dead Pool and She Hulk breaking the 4th wall, with Family Guy manatee gags, with anime characters like Bo Bo Bo, and in general with stuff like Monthy Python and the Airplane and Naked Gun movies. We can handle surreal stuff, symobolism, dream-like imagery and Dr. Who christmas specials. 'Gunnerkrigg Court' shows the right way to do what 'Sarah Zero' has failed to do.
I'm new here.On a superficial first pass, this reads like a 30-something web designer decided to illustrate a 16 year old male's geek-rage. 'The internet has been taken over by corporate cultural oppressers and humanity consists of sheeple brainwashed by the RIAA.' Acted out by a set of buxom babes with sassitude. My favorite scene? "You will never stop the music!" (finger) Followed by (what else?) a messy headshot.
To be fair, I'm probably missing most of the memetic references. That's because I'm old enough to remember when all this rage was directed at Television.
To be even fairer, the art is pretty awesome.
edited 5th Jan '13 4:06:35 PM by DeMarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.

As I was sprucing up the Sarah Zero page, it occurred to me to add Love It or Hate It to the tropes section. I set out to find reviews expressing both view points, and the first result that popped up was a badwebcomicswiki review. "Okay," I thought to myself "this guy hates everything. That would work as a negative viewpoint." I searched further. More bad reviews. And more. Way more than there were good ones. In fact, the only positive review I could find was Complaining About People Not Liking the Show, and was so pitiful that I could not bring myself to use it. So I had to face the facts: The people who like this webcomic are just a small subset of the small subset of people who have read this webcomic. Is this true? Am I seriously alone in my tastes?