Sinfest

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2022-05-21

"Covid is the flu."

That's supposed to be a "Truth Bomb"? Scientifically, Covid is certain not influenza. So then, it just feels like the flu? People on ventilators passing away, overloading hospitals, WTF does he even mean?

A million people have died. There's a pretty good case could be made that nobody should be spreading crap like that.

I guess, nobody's going to die or spread a potentially deadly virus from half-baked conspiracy theories, so have at it, but spreading medical misinformation during a public health crisis isn't just "free speech".

This is where Tat's bad writing and illogic reveals itself. His position is: "I believe in radical free speech, and anyone should be able to shit post any wackadoodle notion they can conceive. The end." but he then refers to things unverifiable as being "Truth Bombs".

It wasn't all that long ago that Tat absolutely loved weird ass spellings of "women" as radical feminist chic.

Edited by Bassweasel on May 20th 2022 at 10:42:57 AM

Except for the Epstein thing, I could be charitable and view this as Tats trying to say that both "sides" deserve to lose. The other "truth bombs" are ridiculous, right up there with the Flat Earth Truthers and the Moon Landing Hoaxers.

But ... given the circumstances, does anyone really believe that Epstein killed himself?

I think that of all the old characters turning into deplorable mouth-pieces for Tatsuya's increasingly disgusting and dishonest world-view, Squig is the one that hurts the most.

Aye. Squig was the helpful and wiseish, if weird and doped up, dude. Now he's yet another mouthpiece. This quckin' sucks.

Even more than that, Squig's personality has disappeared. He and Monique are now interchangeable, commenting on things in a dour Dull Surprise and not contributing anything beyond that.

Wait a sec- I thought “wxmxn” was a radfem thing, rather than “woke”? Has Tats completely abandoned radical feminism in favor of tinfoil hattery now?

@Bassweasel

You see, Covid IS just the flu. It’s actually the vaccines who killed a million people, even before they were created! (this is what Tats probably actually believes)

On the inside job thing: In 2001 good ol’ Dubya was in charge. Unless he’s trying to either blame Obama for 9/11, or claim George was a lefty, it’s not “leftist wokes” who reeeee over that.

Same with the Epstein thing. To my limited knowledge it was a bipartisan thing, defending on who people thought supposedly killed him. (Hillary or Trump). It isn’t about the “wokes” or the left specifically. And literally nobody is defending Epstein whatsoever.

Edited by Eggmaster on May 21st 2022 at 11:21:54 AM

Doesn't Squig have to be high to fly? Does this mean weed is legal in Sinfest world?

Not that it really matters. The Conan reference is so blatantly stupid it makes my head turn. Especially since Twitter Tower still has drones decorating it AND the dumb bird has flown away from there.

Seriously this is like stream of consciousness thinking turned into a webcomic.

Seriously this is like stream of consciousness thinking turned into a webcomic.

Didn't Tats once claim, in a long-ago interview, that he sometimes just takes a random idea and runs with it, "stream of consciousness" style?

This strip seems to be evidence for that. In this case, the random idea seems to have been the result of misfiring neurons.

Come to think of it, misfiring neurons would explain the existence of quite a few Sinfest strips ...

I kinda like this one, from a visual standpoint.

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2022-05-22

Utterly perplexing. Monique... as i understand her to be... fresh from hell... does standup. Peace, love and justice is incredibly popular... then her shadow, who I assume is evil, takes over with capitalism and materialism which descends into monarchy then freemasonary and finally illumanti which it believes is lucrative because it showers itself in shadow money. The audience though goes from shock to hostility and attacks.

Is Tats admitting that his lurch into conspiracy theories is actually evil or is he just whining that it's unpopular? Looking at what his former fan base says he apparently has no self awareness at all and is known to attack his audience instead on reflecting on his poor choices so I'm going to take it he's making a comment about the audience not his evil shadows wit (I say him... Tats appears to use Monique as a proxy for himself... but then I notice he does that for all his characters... that armchair flying nazi pig from the last strip is just him as well).

And why is the pearl necklace not a shadow?

I think that for once there's little mystery about what Tats is saying: Monique, as evidenced by her alter ego Demonique, has become corrupted, and she values material things over virtuous things.

(That might not be fair to her, since it seems to be Demonique spouting the objectionable stuff. But y'know, for years Monique blamed Slick for all the bad things that Sleaze did. So suck it up, Buttercup.)

But why is Tats saying that? What's the subtext?

My guess is that Monique is the avatar of a real person, and for years both she and Monique could do no wrong. But for some reason she and Tats have had a falling-out, and now Tats is rebuking her.

I think this one breaks down to: -

Woman falls for rich man and Tats weeps incel tears of inadequate rage

It's been guessed since Monique moved into the Mansion (for a year or so!) that Real!Monique and Tats had a falling out

I do think this is a decent strip and a decent page of story with some real potential

BUT

What's stopping me from truly enjoying it that with Tats you always, ALWAYS , bet on the false dawn when it comes to narrative

Bet on stupid with Tats, and you'll break the bank every spin of the wheel

P.S.

Next up on Sinfest, Tats shrieks more lunatic conspiracy theories at the wind and wonders why even the old granny with a zimmer frame has managed to sprint for the mountains!

I kid: - Tats does self introspection exactly like a petulant narcissist jerking off to his own reflection because he is one

A former genius of Tat's former calibre? Well, I think he's gone from Vulcan minigun to (unloaded) water pistol

What a freakin' tool he is

Edited by NeedsAirCon on May 22nd 2022 at 10:18:06 AM

I suppose that the story about Slick and Sleaze could represent Tats facing criticism and feeling guilt for past choices, which led to him accepting radical feminism and using his webcomic for self-flagellation due to the crimes of his sex. Monique is likely the person who was his radfem-senpai, possibly also the person who apparently caused him to reject the therapy that made 2010-ish Sinfest so positive. At some point they have had a falling out, so Monique is becoming less of a paragon as a result. Perhaps this person's "betrayal" is what caused Tats to start parroting Q Anon and pander to the MAGA-crowd?

I'm guessing that Tats was hoping for either a romantic relationship, or Friends with Benefits, but she insisted on the relationship being platonic only, due to being a lesbian. At some point she was in a relationship with another woman, Abby, but I get the feeling that Monique was mostly a "political lesbian", or a closeted bisexual, but she had no interest in the charms of our #1 Male Ally. So imagine a guy like Tats finding out that his longtime Incompatible Orientation crush was capable of falling for a dude, just not him. To add insult to injury, I assume this guy was everything Tats isn't: Charming, cool and affluent enough to live in an apartment big enough to jokingly call it a "mansion".

I noticed a few interesting visual things about this strip. The most obvious one are the woke-looking people in the audience, sitting with Miko. The wokes in the audience look sympathetic and have a legitimate grievance with Monique/Demonique going against her previous IT-girl persona. Compare that to all the years of her unhappy fans representing unhappy Sinfest-fans.

Another interesting thing is that while Demonique looks a lot like the Monique of old, especially when she cosplayed as a Devilgirl, but Monique herself looks a bit closer to her old self. Compared to how she looked before the radfem-buzzcut, she is still fairly androgynous, but she looks less so now. Her hair is a tiny bit longer now, more Boyish Short Hair than angry political buzzcut. She also has slightly a more noticeable bust again, looking more like every other female extra these days, while earlier she looked more angular, close to how Tats draws thin young men.

If this slight art-shift is intentional, then perhaps Tats' senpai-crush started to gradually dress in a more conventionally feminine manner, which she had earlier criticized as a tool of the Patriarchy? Perhaps she is also the reason for Tats' current hatred of piercings?

And now to laugh at her as her allies turn on her.

HA

Oh yeah,

The alternative explanation is that Tats is pitying himself for all his former fans turning on him /facepalm

And now the title of It Girl will pass to Miko as Monique is forced to go out and get a real job.

The funniest bit is that I'm pretty sure I recall Monique being plenty vain and materialistic back in the Classic Sinfest days - and yet she still seemed like a better person then.

And now the title of It Girl will pass to Miko as Monique is forced to go out and get a real job.

Get a real job? What does she know how to do, other than recite bad slam poetry?

This might be the start of a fall-and-redemption arc. OTOH, it might be the beginning of an extended Take That! arc directed at RealMonique.

The real pity is that there could be something of genuine artistic value here in a strip called Sinfest, as the characters struggle with their "darker side" in an allegoric universe.

Unfortunately, instead of storytelling with an actual audience in mind, Tat has chosen to make it some unfathomable personal diary with the only relevance to himself and his own personal demons. Without the context of knowing what those are, it's confusing at best, and boring at worst.

And then, there's the nuttery.

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2022-05-23

I mean, they're not wrong in their assessment. And Monique never has been able to handle criticism.

Without the context of knowing what those are, it's confusing at best, and boring at worst.

Plus the proselytizing for the Cause of the Week ... but even when I can figure out what the issue is, it's often hard to tell whether Tats is for it or against it. It's a strange variant of PoesLaw — as in the "Truth Bombs" strip, is he pushing a position, or satirizing it?

Both! He's pushing a position and the satire is completely unintentional!

As usual, a missed opportunity from Tats. Could have been interesting to see Miko also turn on Monique, but this tells me that the speculated character-assassination won't happen.

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2022-05-24

From my persepctive it just seems Tats has no self awareness at all. he seems firmly in the MAGA camp but this strip surely doesn't sit well wth their view of what happened Jan 6th which they are happy to gaslight themselves with any tenuous excuse (tourist trip, peaceful protest)... we literally have endless hours of footage of them on a murderous rampage and yet confronted with it turn into naive innocents.

I am fairly new to Sinfest but my impression is Tats can't resist having a dig at the "woke" so it's clearly hankering back to the antifa and BLM protests... I believe he did a strip of a MAGA character running over his demonstrator proxies at the time... but how he can blithely miss how this reflects on the Jan 6th insurrectionists is a mystery.

Still no Roe vs Wade.... feminism eh.