Sinfest

This was the most boring possible resolution to this storyline.

Better than my (admittedly subterrenean) expectations

Is it me or is Miko slowly mutating into the appearance of a female Slick? (3rd row, 2nd panel)

Author wish fulfilment time again? His favorite characters seem to do the author appearance thingie quite a bit

Not sure if it's Tats is bored of the storyline or scared of the backlash if he goes full on blatant TERF in it (instead of hinting at it with a klaxon), but hopefully this current storyline has died the death today.

We'll see. After all, tommorrow is another chance for him to stick his head up his own ass and go back to hunting for more nonsense to asspull in order to make himself look like a fool again

Edited by NeedsAirCon on May 19th 2019 at 7:46:07 PM

The TERF stuff has all been blatantly and obviously established already. I can't see how people could still deny Tats hates trans people.

Fangirl has acquired the power of teleportation! I don't see another way she could have gotten on top of that van. Tats conveniently let that part out, because establishing something is hard work!

For a brief moment I thought all three of them might get shipped off to the girl camp together, but it would have taken effort and that's just not how Tats functions. Continuing stories in a satisfying manner is hard work!

Lazy, anti-climactic and full of asspulls. It's the complete Tatsuya Ishida treatment!

Told you. Also, what the quck is that blade? I mean, to slice open the roof of a car you need industrial grade cutters - do you REALLY mean an emotionally unstable preteen ended up with a weapon that could literally slice a person apart in seconds?

JDM Leverton, I actually full-heartedly agree. I think he does read the critiques and at times I really do think he takes them into consideration. I don't know if it is my own ego thinking that we affect his work, but whenever people would say things it would reflect in his comic. For example, we would talk about the quality of his comic and how he obviously would copy and paste the majority of it (he would save sprites, resize them, flip them, shade them, etc., to make them appear slightly different and reuse them). I have to admit, he got better. It's harder to tell if he copy and pastes.

People complained about how he draws out boring storylines; they have been better. We have harped on his pacing. It has improved.

Considering the fact that he has improved, am going to do something a bit different this time; I am going to actually defend Tat on something (gasp)!

The old forum was crazy toxic. Let's not doubt that for a second. It was crazy inhospitable to anyone who had a differing opinion to Tatsuya's and his fans views...until the SWERF and TERF moment. I wasn't a legacy poster or anything, and mostly I kept pretty amibiguous, but the MOMENT I said something (and I do mean ANYTHING) not in line with their views before Tat's SWERF stance there was almost immediate backlash.

I'm not going to lie; I joined the Discord server because it was a bit of schadenfraude/justice that I enjoyed watching. Some of the same people who ostracized those who didn't agree with them were suddenly being silenced not by the power of a mob, but by broadly abused authority and favoritism for simply expressing opposing views. And I have to say, a very large majority of them learned from it. They were much more welcoming and considerate to newcomers/differing viewpoints. Although, when the subject was broached about how they treated dissenters in the past, they would defend the manner in which they made their arguments. But at least they were able to sympathize now, because it happened to them and they couldn't say anything.

Maybe the majority of a crabby posters just left and all the lurkers went to Discord. Maybe the fandom was just misrepresented on the old forum because it was the loudest and rudest that kept posting. Regardless, the Discord is a good little community. I really only left because I got tired of the constant assault of politics that kept bleeding in from other channels and I was honestly a bit addicted to the forums.

Anyway, and this goes more into theory than anything else...if the readers and forumites didn't hassle Tatsuya so much for just hinting at his crazy beliefs, I don't think this storyline would have came to fruition. Tat had a rabid fan base and that made Tat rabid himself. He hinted at TERF stuff and let it lay, but when his fans told him to conform to the view of the mob, suddenly, he's the odd man out, but the difference is he has pure authority over the website. Essentially, the fans forced his hand and he went on the attack. It just snowballed after that. Part of the fascination of Sinfest is I have never seen so much hatred between the artist and his base.

The fans, from what I could tell on the Discord server, have wizened up. I think that Tatsuya is trying to do the same, in his own crazy way.

He won't change his beliefs, but I think he is trying to be a better story-teller and artist when he is called out for his laziness.

BUT MAN, HE IS JUST A FREAKING AWFUL STORY-TELLER.

Edit: And ZAIIB is another interesting piece of the puzzle (if it isn't just Tat masquerading as a woman so he won't be accused of being a white knight) because she never matured at all. If it isn't Tat, I am at least very certain that she's an admin and is in charge of banning people left and right. Funny enough, the new forum is just as poisonous as the old forum; it just has one source of said poison.

Edited by Gibson35 on May 19th 2019 at 2:18:24 AM

Today's comic was fine, really. Nothing wrong with it.

The yellow forum is deader than Tats Comic book career. I'm pretty certain everyone has been silently banned at some point or another for expressing anything other than total agreement.

@Gibson 35 To your point about the old Forum, I'd say you joined pretty late if that's your impression. I was never an active poster, but I lurked for years, and let me tell you, there was a LOT of dissention pre-TERF. The problem is, the Feminists did slowly help the Rad Fems drive off all the old posters before they finally realized Tats was the bad sort of Feminist. But before it went downhill, there was a healthy community of supporters, disagreement, and those who just shitpost.

I agree the pacing and art has gotten a bit better. The writing is still hackneyed, but at least it's not as drawn out.

Say, what ever happened to the fembots? Weren't they going to be a big thing? Or are we supposed to forget they existed since Tats made the retcon that Bomf-District workers are human now?

He didn't retcon the Bomf District, he simply has both it and the RoBomf District coexist alongside each other (though possibly not in the same area).

ZAIIB is only relevant on her empty little kingdom/forum.

Wonder what kind of person has fun being queen of a dead board? Regardless, she's just not that relevant except as Tat's last real cheerleader.

Even the last set of his fans have finally renamed their discord forum since they're that disgusted with Tats

What grinds my gears is the sheer badness of the story telling - the honking great big lapses in logic and coherence that grate on me even more than the recent twattery of his pisspoor, badly delivered and frankly vile messages

Case in Point (just from today's comic strip): -

Mini-monique - Now looks like Slick with purple hair, has a power weapon capable of punching through and cutting steel plate (at 12 years old!), and can teleport onto a moving van

The only halfway coherent explanation for all this? It's a blend of a computer game and reality!?

Your'e doing this again!? Even after the Tange/Lily arc where you had to go onto the forums to explain what was going on because even your most rabid fans (2 or more is fans I guess) were going "whut?"

Fuck right off. I would have been embarrased to write such tripe when I was 12 years old myself, let alone repeat the same mistake.

If Tats wants his Swerfy Terfy bullshit to come across as a "message" perhaps he should bother to pay attention to the ideas of "actions, reactions and consequences".

Like Hex said earlier "In order for Moby-Dick to work as a metaphor, he first has to work as a whale."

Tats, your "story" isn't working as a story and that means your message is mired in the breaking of the suspension of disbelief.

We're too busy going "Asspull", "Bad writing" and "Omg, what a prejudiced Twat Tats is" to invest anything in this "story" except mockery

And that's because you're an awful storyteller. The current (main) reason you're so awful is because you're too lazy to set situations up properly and you end up with story houses built on foundations made of quicksand

Edited by NeedsAirCon on May 19th 2019 at 4:15:43 PM

Holy crap, Needs Air Con, I didn't notice until you said it but she really, REALLY does look like Slick with just purple hair. Even down to the two-tone hair.

Granted, (And this is another art critique if you are reading Tat) all his characters look alike. Seriously, if he changed EVERYBODY'S clothes tomorrow and it was a gray scale comic, we would have a hard time telling who is who. That's probably more due to streamlining the comic and getting it done fast though; all his character designs are cookie cut-outs.

I wonder how long it's going to be until Slick is completely written out of the story altogether. I think I said it before, but I had wondered if ZAIIB and Tat were an item (which is why I suspect a notorious introvert would give someone access to his forum which she MUST have because there's no way it's just convenience that anyone who disagrees with her just disappears). I still think is more likely that Tat is ZAIIB and the fact that Miko is starting to look like Slick (I think Miko is supposed to be ZAIIB in comic form) is just Tatsuya's personal wish-fulfillment and...well...

I'm going to say it like this: you know how there are certain preachers who are so anti-gay in preaching and it turned out to be that they were gay and they were desperately trying to convince themselves that they weren't? Does anyone think that maybe Tat is preaching anti-trans stuff for the same reason?

What do you guys think? Am I out of bounds?

Also, JDM Leverton, you are right that I was a bit late to the party. I think I signed up for the forums around 2012 (I never clicked on the little forum button and wondered "what the hell was that" and boom) and had my fill of that and Sinfest in general around 2015. And I think you are right that the feminists battled the others away, because that was the sense I got. I lurked a few years later and I remembered people saying things like, "Huh, this forum is a bit dead now; where did everyone go?"

Like they didn't have anyone to fight anymore.

No one to fight except for OTHER feminists.

I wonder if Tat was banning them in secrecy or they just left like I did. I wonder HOW long he had been doing that.

And Redmess, I think I can agree. The comic really isn't that bad. The art is nice (although I think those who were driving would have noticed the breakout through the mesh divider; it would be better if there were no mesh at all; we also don't see the drivers yet Theo the and kid are close together meaning the proportions of the van are off [the front being wider than the back]). I guess I would say the payoff wasn't big enough for the buildup. Just as Hex said, it's more of a cop out..but if the driver noticed and turned back AROUND to chase them.

That would be pretty interesting.

(Is Tat a fan of jail break movies or something? He keeps going back to that)

Edited by Gibson35 on May 19th 2019 at 2:17:02 AM

JDMLeverton wrote:

Since we know he monitors this forum (It's the ONLY place on the web still talking about Sinfest- I've looked. That makes it easy to find too.)

Well, there's the Discord board, now called "Skyworld," and the spinoff Sinfest Discourse Board with a more traditional forum format.

How far ahead do you think he is? Do you think he keeps aborting because we keep calling his plots early? We all know how he loves to think he's unpredictable, dropping truth bombs to blow the minds of the masses. Can't use the plot he initially came up with once it's been figured out.

I'm three-quarters convinced that he dropped the plot thread about Nameless J. Pimp climbing out of the Pit and ascending to the surface on Easter Sunday because several of us here called it weeks in advance.

Gibson 35 wrote:

I wonder how long it's going to be until Slick is completely written out of the story altogether. I think I said it before, but I had wondered if ZAIIB and Tat were an item (which is why I suspect a notorious introvert would give someone access to his forum which she MUST have because there's no way it's just convenience that anyone who disagrees with her just disappears). I still think is more likely that Tat is ZAIIB and the fact that Miko is starting to look like Slick (I think Miko is supposed to be ZAIIB in comic form) is just Tatsuya's personal wish-fulfillment and...well...

If Celina/Z6IIAB really were Tats, I'd expect her comments and defenses of the comic to be a lot more competent than they've been. Also, Tats has commented directly on What That Church of Porn Comic Really Means, so I don't think he needs a sock puppet.

What do we know about Celina/Z6IIAB? (Or think we know ...) Well, she uses Portugese expressions and claims to be from Brazil. She has said that she started reading the comic in 2007, when she was ten years old. She's an ardent, and very dogmatic, defender of Tats and his brand of radical feminism. She had advance knowledge of the Yellow Forum, by about two weeks IIRC, and she probably has moderator privileges there.

So that would make Celina 22 years old now, or 14 or 15 in late 2011 when Sinfest mutated into a radfem Chick tract.

So here's my hypothetical scenario:

In 2006, about the time Slick stopped actively trying to get Monique to be his "ho," Tats hooked up with a Brazilian girlfriend, an adult woman with a daughter from a previous relationship. (This explains why the daughter, "Celina," was reading Sinfest at the age of ten.) In 2011 Celina became a radical feminist in high school. To avoid alienating the daughter and his girlfriend, Tats cut the sexism and turned Sinfest into an unfunny, allegorical Woke comic. Monique's personality transplant is based on Celina's conversion to radical feminism, and her relationship with Absinthe reflects Celina becoming a lesbian. The recent "The sun is out and so am I" comic celebrated Celina either coming out of the closet or more likely moving in with a girlfriend.

I suspect that Miko is modeled on someone else, someone younger.

Edited by Hexapodia on May 19th 2019 at 5:11:00 AM

http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2019-05-20

Omg, a brief moment of logical consequences to actions in Sinfest with a (teeny tiny) dash of humour

(Sets the grenades to one side for a moment and steeples fingers under nose)

"No grenades today, but no roses yet either"

P.S. Why am I hyped due to a tiny shard of sensible storytelling? Because so far, it's been doubleplus ungood

P.P.S. I really don't think we should be hypothesizing about rabid fans from another forum's personal lives.

Edited by NeedsAirCon on May 19th 2019 at 2:33:46 PM

P.P.S. I really don't think we should be hypothesizing about rabid fans from another forum's personal lives.

You're probably right.

On the other hand, they're quite willing to pontificate about ours.

(I'm male and straight, and I think certain of Tats' fans would consider me a Willing Tool of the Patriarchy and Worse than Hitler.)

And on the third hand, it's not that she's in another forum. It's that she seems to act as Tats' spokesperson. We'd have the same questions about her relationship to the comic if her messages appeared on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Edited by Hexapodia on May 20th 2019 at 3:34:13 AM

This is yet another strip in the "Level Up" arc, which I take as further evidence that this is all a game simulation. But is it a three-player game, a two-player game with Kevin an NPC, or a one-player game with both boys being NPCs? If Kevin is a real person, how and why did he join the game?

There's another one of those No-P signs in the background. It seems to be located where a STOP sign was in the previous comic.

Edited by Hexapodia on May 19th 2019 at 7:53:15 AM

All men are NP Cs. /s

Oh damn, Mini Monique really does like like Slick. Going how the old Slick/Squig/Criminy could represent Tat's old Id/Ego/Super Ego, will Theo now be future Criminy and Kevin Squig??

Also, that's gotta hurt. Hope Kevin doesn't have a spinal injury.

Edited by Democritus on May 20th 2019 at 1:46:12 AM

Meh. Put a metal orc's skull on her and she'd be a double for Darth Helmet.

Kevin didn't deserve this

Well, this strip is considered good by modern strip standards.

Does the screech mean that the van is braking or is it going around a corner? They might still be recaptured!

Since there are no characters talking there's a lot less that Tats can fuck up.

Take a look at the other strips in this arc. The van doesn't roll, it *flies* — typically with all four wheels off the pavement. And it screeches, too.

I think the van won't come back for them, but I could be wrong.

* * *

Hey! I just noticed! The Sunday color comic was laid out in PANELS!!!

Edited by Hexapodia on May 20th 2019 at 1:00:02 AM

Physics happens! That was pretty funny.

"Oh silly, clumsy men who can't even hold onto a chain correctly. It's a good thing you have a strong woman here to save you."

First minute of the routine applies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rMiVxGh-Q

Anyway, not saying it wasn't funny. It was. I just see that subtle jab and play to his base.

Honestly, I'm pretty certain you're in the ballpark at the VERY least. Tats' feminist philosophy puts so much hatred and bile onto the male gender with no real path for redemption, and he's buried himself in it for so long now, I'd be amazed if he wasn't at least wishing every day that he was born a woman if not having given himself full on Gender Dysphoria (Dunno if that's even possible, but if it is Tats would've managed it).

I mean, when you make a comic every day that has the constant repeating message of "men suck and are horrible, men suck and are horrible" and you believe in that message wholeheartedly, it's going to cause some issues when your brain just can't keep up the mental gymnastics anymore.