Reviews Webcomic / Ctrl Alt Del

Well comics are supposed to tell the story through the visuals. It isn't very efficient to cover 70% of the panel with text, especially to tell just one joke. Dinosaur Comics is a curious exception to this rule.

PA tends to do that too. No one cares then.

That is the worst abuse of the hot tip I have ever seen! EVER!

........Why?

Basically, your review is 'if you ignore all the things that are wrong with it, it's pretty good'.

It should be obvious the fact you have to ignore all the things that are wrong with to make it pretty good is what makes it irredeemably awful.

I'm afraid you fail in logic/or reading dear person above me.

He's saying their are flaws and that the comic is good despite having flaws. That doesn't require you to ignore the flaws. IE Lord of the Rings has sections containing too much backstory and keeps referencing things a reader wouldn't be familiar with is not the same as "if you ignore all the flaws, LOTOR rings is good.

He's said the humour is good but the technique behind it is poor. Which seems fair enough.

This is what I don't understand about people who enjoy CAD, I realize everyone has different tastes and we all enjoy different things. But I've never seen a CAD justify why they like it properly. All I've seen are examples like the review "Yeah it has it's flaws, but it is pretty funny though." and thats it. I'd love to see a fan of the series offer a nice constructive review about why they are entertained by it, especially with the amount of critiscm (mine included) out there which would make it rather refreshing to see a positive and well thought out opinion of the comic.

Okay, I will admit Buckley does get it right at times. Exaples like the Go W gun train joke or the LA Noire like GTA strip did make me laugh, and the earlier stuff when it was less about story arcs and more like gag-a-day strip give me more reason to chuckle. Of course they do say a broken clock is still right twice a day. But I'd really like to know how some people can look past the lazy and poor artwork, constant use of GIS for backgrounds, ripping off other artists work (Abbeygate), the ton of words present. Not to mention the entirely unlikeable characters; a Mary Sue Man Child who has succeeded in anything he does, treats his best friend like crap, said friend who has given up his hopes and dreams and taken a lot of problems just to support him, also the wife, who is there for boob jokes, to look after this Man Child, who can't persue being a professional gamer because it cuts into Ethans gaming time and like all women, is treated with sexism and disdain just for being a girl. Plus a robot who is just a mixture of Bender and HK-47. All of whom apologise to Ethan for even not supporting anything he does.

Not to mention Buckley himself, who not only things he can create his own gamer religion and holiday, but also his own gaming convention/LAN party which suffers from less interest and turn out each year, who allegedy likes to show his junk to underage girls, who apparently sues people for making fan art and tries to run his own forums and community like a dictatorship, censoring and erasing anything which disagrees with his opinions even if it's polite and unoffensive. I'm nto surprised he has become a whipping boy of the Internet and other webcomics really.

Don't interpret this as an attack on you OP. If you like it, more power to you. But why exactly do you like it? How do you manage to look past all those flaws and issues present?

The claim it is good is one sees past its flaws is... nonesence. A rotten tomato may have juice in it but it is still a rotten tomato. Flaws exist everywhere, good or bad: the difference is that flaws dominate the latter notion.

@Revelo Explain why you think food tastes good, why you like a genre of music, or why you think a comedy is funny. There's a limit to how far you can explain your subjective tastes.

@Revelo Most of the one-offs are still pretty funny, as are the running jokes and whilst the story arcs are normally terrible (with the exception of the Mac Panthers), I'm not very put-off by that when its something like a webcomic which takes less than a minute to consume. Even the 'real life' strips can have some gems (my favourite being when Ethan tries to grind cooking)

I love the double punchlines that every complains about. He does the joke and then finishes it off with a more wry joke. Maybe it is because he can't structure a joke properly but it gives a much more relaxed 'hey check this out' sort of tone then the four line build up of a PA strip.

The artwork doesn't mean much to me, it fantastic when he needs it for a joke and average enough that it doesn't distract from the joke otherwise. I don't even notice the copy and paste, maybe it helps give a sense of familiarity. Ripping off other artwork doesn't bother, because frankly, I'm not aware it's happening not having the knowledge of art to spot it and while reprehensible he has pulled character designs if people asked him too and proper industry comics have a habit of taking their character designs from somewhere (either other art or just plain celebrities).

Ethan is fun for the most part two. He's just a nice character of someone who just stuck a game inside their head and let it do for a brain. The only times it becomes insufferable is when, as you pointed out, he goes all Mary Sue and becomes good at something he shouldn't be good at. Those parts are normally connected with the story arcs and are a prime reason for the arcs failing so I've already explained that bit.

His wife is one of my favourite characters. She's a girl-gamer who feels like a very genuine person and doesn't want to be packaged as a girl gamer, she loves her husband and has quite a real motherly relationship where she sees past his lack of intelligence. Their relationship is one of the best things about the whole comic and Lucas is the ultimate straight-man. There was never a person better at having a funny reaction, being the level headed one and without the disillusioning superiority that can sometimes go with the role.

And I don't think knowledge of an artist should necessarily impinge on the work. The internet is a pretty horrible place, particularly forums and forum drama/politics (as an ex-CA Dite I can testify that it became a pretty relaxed cool place when it was decided the best thing to do was chuck out all the old moderators and for Tim to leave it alone and not have to read through the abuse/criticism that comes with the territory). Tim was pretty young when he was forced into fame and he's clearly not a finished person, but neither are we. He tries hard to be good and his posts come off like any young adult, sincere and still wanting the wisdom that we're only going to get after a lot of experience with life. People make fun of him for saying that a webcomic artist shouldn't need thanking, that he's living the dream because of us, but I figure thats a pretty genuine expression. And when he was using his position to try and get a League of Legends character made, he really did want it to be a community thing, he wanted to use his place to help us and do something cool with us. He followed through with that too, looking through peoples suggestions and leaving the decision making to a public poll rather than giving preference to his own work.

• Also Tim isn't really very involved in the forums, I need to stress that. At one point there was a very corrupt chief mod who created a mess and it required an uncorrupt but tough mod to sort the mess out and now even he's gone passing the duty on to a much mellower protege

I must disagree with you there, Numberless-Tom person.

A good number of jokes are funny, but Skittles inside of dogshit does not make for a good meal. I can't harp on you for art stuff, but, as an artist, I found that once he shifted to not using copy-paste it started getting worse and worse, with the proportions starting to suffer, along with symmetry. The recent phase he had to color peoples' irises was actually the worst though, somehow invoking the Uncanny Valley.

I find the storylines abysmally idiotic, this current one exemplifying it. I would liken Tim Buckley to Tite Kubo in terms of content published weekly plotwise during storylines, as well as for his ludicrous plot twists.

Ethan to me is the very reason this comic cannot be taken without metric fucktons of salt. The most absurd thing about the entire comic is that Ethan survived past adolescence with an IQ that rivals my shoe size. That we are supposed to empathize or somehow connect with someone with such retardism volatility is nothing short of horrifying. The various schemes he manages to get involved with and escape relatively unscathed is too various and many to be supported by the belief suspension system I have.

I find Lilah also very disturbing, the only thing that keeps her from being realistic to me is the fact that she puts up with this shit from Ethan and never once has her faith waiver. Faith, I might redundantly add, in an idiotic and selfish manchild. Their relationship to me does not work, and comes off less like a couple that has survived some problems and more like a woman desperate to try and dodge the invisible bullets unceremoniously being emptied from the machine gun that is Ethan's id. They have no chemistry to me.

Lucas to me is not that very good of a straight man considering all the problems he has as well, one included being that he can handle Ethan.

I'm not going to speak for the man's personal life, but I know from experience one small detail can make a terrible thing worthwhile or an awesome thing bad and unfulfilling, even if that is a detail that never shows up in the completed project. To me, the rumors about Buckley do not ruin a good thing, but rather I ignore it in favor of disliking the product itself.

Lastly, I am sorry if this came off as attacking or harsh, I mean no disrespect or offense to you or your tastes. My words are only effective bullets if you hurl yourself at them at Mach I.

I didn't find it disrespectful or harsh at all, go in peace but our opinions will probably continue to differ :D

If you look past Hitler's flaws, he was a pretty good guy. (main point, this argument doesn't work)

Agreed with above. 'Numerous' is way to much already, why should I force myself to enjoy something that has 'numerous' things that would make me cringe, roll-eyes, or hang myself?

@Amazing Lagann Well you probably shouldn't vote or partake in a capitalist society, or a communist society, or society in general, friends are probably a bad thing for you, stay away from America and Canada and Britain and France and Norway and Latvia. Progressive tax systems are useless but not as useless as non progressive tax systems or no tax systems at all.

Don't ever force yourself through healthcare, or eat food prepared by anyone but a master chef (even then be selective with your chef. Never, ever enjoy Friends or Avatar.

Breathing is a pretty flawed process involving inhaling numerous toxins and carcinogens, your muscles are ridiculously flawed and crude converters of chemical energy and the entire universe has the little flaws of thermodynamics that need to be avoided for continued reliable existence.

But most of all Godwin-ing and not really trying to engage with the argument on many levels is a little too flawed for me to look past (main point, you're correct, your argument didn't work :D)

Don't take that too seriously almost every facet of existence has numerous flaws and you have to look past them or stop living, Kexruct was an optimist who found experiencing good things worth seeing a few unfunny things and argued that the comic wasn't worth loathing and to some extent justified both things. You may have a different life outlook but his argument wasn't so fundamentally bad to be dismissed by a Hitler reference (not even a particularly good one at that, you've got to at least justify what aspect of Hitler might be described as good, and even then what you're actually debating with is the cariacture of a man forced into a non-existent black and white because we don't like to believe that there is so little that separates us (who are basically good people right?) from horrific monstrousities, which isn't a solid logical base for an argument)

@lacusness well the good news is you seem to be impervious to hanging (or have some excellently specific death spasms) the bad news is you take easy offence and pain from things which aren't really painful just not particularly good at what they try to do. ^^

I can't make you enjoy CAD, and I shouldn't, you don't enjoy CAD and cunning arguments aren't going to change this, my recommendation is that you don't read it. All the same I will argue that it's not deserving of your hate and that for people who value the good bits more than they're negatively affected than the bad bits, why shouldn't they enjoy it?

EDIT: Here's a cool article on why any possible voting procedure will have lots of flaws http://aperiodical.com/2012/04/electoral-reforms-and-non-transitive-dice/

Would you stop twisting your words around to make it seem you sent your point across? You don't have the right to make anyone else to not hate it. Nothing's perfect, nothing is universally liked.

Let me guess, you're going to counter this with a wall of text again with the passive-aggressive tone(with the emotes to make it seem you're not an angry fanboy) and post some links that has nothing to do with CAD. Okay you win.

I think of the emoting as more of a written tic ^^, I do it when I'm happy as well as when I'm passively aggressively twisting words around, if you've seen any of my none evil comments it'd confirm it, or if I were to show you my Facebook, I drive my friends mad with the things :D

The wall of texting is a problem, I'm still not quite sure why I do it. Inability to puts thought concisely? Maybe I have a fear of just putting thoughts out there and I overcompensate by throwing in words and examples and fluff

Fanboy is harsh though, I'd probably be rejected if I were to apply to the fan club :D Fanboys probably have to read the comic more than a couple of times a month

Hate is a negative thing and in the case of CAD it has been directly very outwardly at real people with real lives as well as towards fans, dislike is different from hate and I still don't see anything in CAD deserving of hate. Just ... not wanting to read it? I guess.