Zero Punctuation - Webcomics

Taking CAD and Dueling Analogs down a peg (or five billion).
 
Pretty good. Mostly because CAD is pure unfiltered shit.
 
That was good.

Like it says in the video the hypocrisy is gigantic :p
I bet he could tear himself apart.

"lol i can spit out decent writing at a very fast pace to make it seem more witty" etc.
 
I laughed at the bit where he took the piss out of CAD, especially the picture associated with it
 
That really wasn't the point of the video.

Way to just join in on the drama, lol.
 
I don't get it? Where did he attack CAD.
Also I never liked PA, I do like Perry Bible fellowship, cynide, and VGcats.
 
I lol'd. I read CAD but agree that I could be reading much better things.
 
I was just thinking the other day that ZP should review things other than videogames. This makes me think that he does and I've just never seen it.
 
You assholes and your acronyms. If it weren't for Sea, I would have no idea what the **** CAD meant. I was lost for half this thread.
 
Krynn72 said:
You assholes and your acronyms. If it weren't for Sea, I would have no idea what the **** CAD meant. I was lost for half this thread.
Click to expand...

This^^

Also, damn hypocrit. At least he admited it thou. But still.
 
Never was a part of the Webcomic community so i didnt really find any of it funny.
 
I rather like CAD actually. It's unfunny a lot, but I enjoy it. Valid points all around though.
 
Speaking of CAD, why exactly is the main character guy pissed at that robot?
 
The robot unintentionally said something really inappropriate regarding the miscarriage.

There was no actual comic detailing that exact event happening, it was just mentioned.
 
I think it's supposed to be implied that the robot said something very crude about the baby, I don't think it's ever actually shown.

Edit: Damn, this post is now obselete.
 
Miscarriage? In a gaming strip?

Oh CAD, if only you had any notches left to go down.
 
That was awesome.

CAD sucks.

8^D
 
So I checked out the latest CAD stuff. Yeah, eww.

But hey, at least he hasn't compromised any of his trademark wit.

20080630.jpg
 
I don't think I ever found CAD funny but this new shit is just ridiculous, Yahtzee is right. I'd watch daytime network television if I wanted to follow horribly written soap opera. Ugh, I can't believe I just read through those. What would be interesting to hear about is if his real life girlfriend had a miscarriage and this was his way of coping. Even so, it just seems so forced down our throats. Blah...
 
I read the news post accompanying the comic because I was curious about that as well, seems like a weird direction to take a comic like CAD on a whim. Apparently his girlfriend in a past relationship had a miscarriage. Idunno, I guess that makes it "okay", obviously it's a horrible thing for him to have gone through, but it's still just... you know... wtf.

He also said he has a plan for the comic years in advance, ie - he knew whatserface would marry Ethan when he first introduced her, and he knew the baby would miscarry before they got pregnant. So, you know. At least he knows what he's doing.
 
I read CAD a couple years back on and off, seemed decent, but I've just read all this new miscarriage bulls*** and it's so damn awkward. This had all better pay off for one hell of a punchline.

And it'd be nice to see Yahtzee do more of this kind of thing, since it's his humour I watch them for, not the reviews.
 
Funny video, but I'd have preferred another retrospective game review or some such.

I've read an article Yahtzee wrote before regarding CAD, in which he claims disdain for the comic and yes, even it's creator. (I'll paste it in or something).

He's got a point though, if one comic has mild success it spawns needless copy cats that are just plain shit. The few webcomics I've enjoyed have been Concerned (but of course); C&H and XKCD.


23/3/08: You Cad

Review this week was Turok, for anyone who didn't notice. Watch it and let's all get on with our lives.

As a recent interview with me over at Gamespot and several references in previous reviews and writings may have informed you, I have a long-standing hatred of the webcomic Ctrl-Alt-Del. I thought I'd take a moment to explain it a bit better.

You see, I have this theory that the internet is causing a general mediocritisation of human culture, because you can put pretty much any piece of work on the internet and no matter how hugely it sucks dolphin jizz you'll find some dick who's prepared to tell you it's brilliant. This is the principle on which Deviantart appears to be founded.

But the cruellest thing you can do to an artist is tell them their work is flawless when it isn't. It gives them no incentive to improve or try new things, which a creative person must always strive to do. And it tends to foster the kind of monstrous egos the webcomic sphere grows like mushrooms in the shit-spattered dark. Tim Buckley of Ctrl-Alt-Del is notorious for having a zero tolerance for any criticism, constructive or otherwise, often deleting it unregarded from his forums, or declaring them invalid for half-baked reasons. It seems blanket praise has already done its damage to this fevered ego.

I don't hate Buckley. I look at CAD and I see a lot of misdirected potential. I know, that sounds hilarious even to me. But if you look at Buckley's art blog, you'll find that he's actually a pretty decent artist when he wants to be. But the promise of easy praise and popularity keeps him mired in his copy-pasted shoulder-hunched droopy-eyed slack-jawed magnum opus.

Not that copy-pasted art need necessarily ruin a comic - Dinosaur Comics is one of my favourite regular reads. It's the fact that for having run a gag-a-day strip for however many years, Buckley still has no idea how to structure a joke. I've never known an artist so determined to never learn anything about their craft. His usual response to this sort of thing is that he just has his own style and that there's no such thing as a 'right' or 'wrong' opinion, but the fact is, while humour is a flexible harlot, it still has rules. Rules which can be broken in the right contexts; contexts which don't include anything Tim Buckley has written.

I'm going to post a link now to a Ctrl-Alt-Del comic from July 2007. Don't let the fact that it's old excuse the mistakes; this is still very typical of Buckley's current work.

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070718

Here's another comic, this one a Penny Arcade strip from early the same year. The subject matter and joke are the same (Puzzle Quest) but it's a fairly obvious joke to make and I can easily assume both writers came up with it independently.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/28

Both comics identify the humour in the situation - that the rules of a game world seem absurd when applied to the real world - but while Penny Arcade understands that the crux of a joke should be reserved for the final panel, Ctrl-Alt-Del is apparently so excited about the idea that it blurts it out right away, leaving three more panels to flounder in excessive dialogue and pointlessness.

A punchline should be equated to an actual punch in the face. That's why it's called a punch-line. You deliver it and run. You do not hang around explaining how you did the punch and that the recipient should probably be in a lot of pain now.

Identify the funny part of the idea and save it for last. Leave with the audience laughing. If you do nothing else, finish strong. That's a rule any humourist will agree with. But with the centrepoint of the gag already uselessly spent, Buckley's comic is forced to fall upon its old standby of violence as a sort of prosthetic punchline. Now, violence can certainly be funny, modern cinema was virtually built on the tradition of slapstick, but it doesn't work in static, non-animated media. There is humour to be found in shock value, but most people have been on the internet long enough to not be shocked by anything as mundane as a claymore through the sweetbreads.

But even if the joke were structured properly, there is still far too much dialogue. This is a problem common to a lot of webcomics, but since we're already in the CAD-bashing groove we'll stick with it. Shakespeare wrote that 'brevity is the soul of wit'. He did not then add 'unless you're writing a webcomic'. It applies to everything, and don't tell me you're arrogant enough to claim to know better than Shakespeare.

A gag strip has a very simple formula. Buildup. Buildup. Buildup. Punchline. Anything that does not in some way build towards the punchline can safely be removed. If any dialogue can conceivably be replaced with a gesture or facial expression (visit Perry Bible Fellowship for a crash course in this), do so; this is a comic, a predominantly visual medium, not a ****ing essay. Additionally, any dialogue pertaining to either ninjas, pirates, monkeys or Jesus should be excised, sealed in resin and buried in an undersea volcano.

This is why Ctrl-Alt-Del is a blight, and the fact that it remains crushingly popular despite making mistakes that a child would be brutally caned for on their first day at comedy school is one of the main reasons I openly weep tears for the future of human culture.

I know that an opinion can't technically be wrong and that there could be people who still like CAD for the characters or the art, but if you genuinely think that it is well-written, then you are demonstrably wrong. That's all there is to it.

Yahtzee is well aware that his own previous webcomic efforts aren't necessarily any better but reminds you that they came out of a dark time in his life from which he has determinedly moved on without a backward glance
Click to expand...
Pretty recent, after he slated Turok.
 
Just read the news story on CAD regarding the miscarriage plot.

If a baby was introduced to the strip, Ctrl+Alt+Del would not suddenly convert into a parenting comic strip, with changing diapers every other strip, etc. This is a comic, and I don't need to show every mundane detail of these characters' lives.
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LOLIRONY
 
Is that some "BAWWWW I DO THINGS MY WAY" excuses I see thar?
 
Yeah, if you're stupid.

Seriously though, Penny-Arcade's Alone in the Dark comic was far funnier, methinks.

20080623.jpg
 
It's funny how Yahtzee mentioned comics should use as little text as possible, well it's funny in relation to your example.
 
Gray Fox said:
TBH that's funnier then most things on PA
Click to expand...

I hope you're not being serious, there is nothing remotely funny about that CAD. PA isn't so great either but at least it's actually funny at times.
 
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