Overshadowed By Controversy / Webcomics

• Whenever people discuss the Webtoon comic Boyfriends., chances are it'll almost always focus on the accusations of the comic playing into stereotypes of homosexual men (despite author Refrainbow being a gay man himself) and the allegations of racism and anti-semitism against Refrainbow when certain comments he made in the past were brought to light.
• Pepe the Frog, a character from the comic Boy's Club, became a widespread meme after his debut in 2005. However, the usage of Pepe as a meme turned awry in mid-2016 when many members of the alt-right used him as a symbol to express racist and anti-Semitic sentiments around the time of the 2016 U.S. election.^note It's possible that some of the offensive Pepe memes, especially those from before 2016, were originally meant more as Vulgar Humor than serious political statements, since other "Rare Pepes" often featured gratuitous Body Horror, coprophilia, Gorn, and various sex acts instead of racist imagery, all played for extremely dark laughs, until genuine bigots started blurring the lines between satire and serious. The damage had been done by the time the Anti-Defamation League classified Pepe as a hate symbol.^note Though they did include the caveat that Pepe is not inherently a hate symbol and context should be taken into account when judging whether using him is hateful. Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe, was so angry over this that he attempted a "Save Pepe" campaign in order to rescue the character. However, in May 2017, Furie decided to kill off Pepe in his comic after the character became more ingrained as a symbol of the far-right. Furie did succeed in enforcing his copyright in certain cases, such as forcing InfoWars's Alex Jones to pay $15,000 in a lawsuit for selling merchandise with Pepe on it, but the reputation as an alt-right meme is very hard to erase.
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  • The webcomic is more well known for the "Loss" (or "CADbortion") arc which is legendary for its Memetic Mutation and Mood Whiplash and writer Tim Buckley's online behavior than anything else. What really makes this moment awful is that Buckley used a similar traumatic experience that an ex-girlfriend suffered as the basis for "Loss", all while showing her no compassion and calling her "toxic". Accusations of being a Penny Arcade knockoff haven't helped and likely played a part in the comic's Retool.
  • It is also known for an incident in which Buckley had a fan animation taken down, made a response that outright insulted the creator, and threatened to sue them, despite previously saying he was okay with fan works. This move was widely criticized, especially after the ill-regarded Animated Adaptation. Not helping matters was Buckley's frequent use of copyrighted characters in the comic.
• The Sonic the Hedgehog webcomic Other M, once extremely popular, now is mostly remembered for being written by future Archie Sonic writer Ian Flynn, and for having one of the villains be Knuckles, who is portrayed as an Absolute Xenophobe. This move received much scorn and has overshadowed every other plot element, including the fact that it takes place in an Alternate Universe, and that Knuckles being this kind of villain was intended as a sign of things being very wrong with said universe. The basic premise was revisited in Archie Sonic's Dark Mobius arc, where it was better received. For what it's worth, even Ian Flynn himself is ashamed of the webcomic.
• Sinfest was initially popular for its Black Comedy and its lighthearted parodies of religious tropes. When the Sisterhood/Patriarchy arc began in 2011, the comic suddenly became an Author Tract reflecting the author's trans-exclusionary radical feminist views, before gradually becoming an alt-right comic. The comic is now more known for its author's radicalization than for the characters and storylines it had before.
• Dave Cheung is a manga artist who was originally famous as the author of Chugworth Academy, a fanservice comic centered around four teenagers attending the eponymous school. However, whenever his name gets brought up nowadays, it tends to be in the context of one or more of the following topics: a very clumsy attempt to tell people to stop demanding explicit material in Chugworth, posting an incredibly demeaning comic about video game developer Jade Raymond on his DeviantART page (which got taken down by the site mods due to its explicit content, prompting heavy backlash from Cheung himself), or the entirety of US Angel Corps, a murder-porn comic infamous for its deeply misogynistic overtones, dangerously literal Torture Porn, and fetishization of rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, and abuse; while it was done primarily on commission, it was still Cheung's idea to begin with.
• Leasebound is a webcomic focusing on two lesbian women who, due to a lease mix-up, accidentally become roommates and eventually lovers. Initially praised for its open LGBT representation and relatability, the comic has since been overshadowed by allegations of transphobia against author RustyHearts following the release of its fourth chapter in February of 2019. Said chapter featured three characters being denied entry into a lesbian bar because they weren't considered "real women". RustyHearts's rather clumsy attempts at addressing these concerns have only added fuel to the fire.
• DAR! A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary and the NSFW sex toy/sex education site Oh Joy Sex Toy aren't respected by a lot of people due to controversial statements from artist Erika Moen. The most cited examples from the former are the "L.U.G." comic, where Erika describes herself as a "lesbian with an exception"^note she would later describe herself as simply "queer" and depicts her boyfriend casually using the word "dyke" and him and Erika expressing sexual desires towards a visibly displeased woman, and a comic where Erika openly admits to fetishizing trans men. While Erika has presumably changed her mind since DAR as Oh Joy tries very hard to be inclusive, the latter's features on certain controversial fetishes have made it a subject of disgust or mockery to many, especially the infamous comic on the cuckolding fetish.
• Once a hallmark of late 2000s/early 2010s Black Comedy webcomics, pictures for sad children is now better-known for (what appeared on the surface to be) the massive Creator Breakdown of its author, Simone Veil, who in 2014 forfeited on a Kickstarter intended to publish a print run of the series, uploaded a video of her burning copies of the print volumes (with threats to burn more if she continued to receive emails asking about the Kickstarter's rewards—though in reality, these were unsalable copies with printing errors and the like), shutting down the comic's website, and filing DMCA notices against anyone who tries to re-upload strips from the series. This literal Torch the Franchise and Run approach became such a defining element of the webcomic's reputation that its article on Know Your Meme ^note which, fair warning, was written before Veil came out as trans and consequently deadnames and misgenders her features a still from the book burning video as its icon. This InputMag interview with Veil sheds some more light on the situation, such as how "Everyone who paid at least $15 had received a copy of the book."
• Ask anyone who knows about Draconia Chronicles, and one of the first things they'll likely bring up is how the first chapter of the story revolved around an Earth Dragon named Gaia suffering a brutal Trauma Conga Line before being unceremoniously killed off in a fight between Scyde and Elektra's groups. While Anyone Can Die is in full effect in this series, the sheer senselessness and cynicism of Gaia's death tainted the comic for many, especially after a rumor began circulating that she had been based off the author's ex-girlfriend he had a messy breakup with (though this was never actually proven).
• Floraverse is mostly known for the antics of, and the allegations against, author glitchedpuppet (which include allegations of bestiality and drawing NSFW artwork of underage and feral characters) than for any of its merits, including the fact that it's a Spiritual Successor to PMD-Explorers (itself listed on the Fan Works page for similar reasons).
• Mallorie Jessica Udischas was originally famous as the author of Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls, which centered around the daily life of a trans woman as she struggled living in Seattle. However, beginning in 2020, she became better remembered for creating comics allegedly supporting shoplifting (which she attempted to defend by stating all of her art supplies she had as a teenager were acquired through stealing) and stealing the possessions of people you dislike - which was a semi-subtle jab at PewDiePie's then-recent home burglary - and the memes both comics inspired.
• Post-2019 discussions of Erfworld are more likely to involve the comic's sudden termination and the lingering controversies over the cause of the Creator Breakdown that ensued, rather than the interesting implications of what is effectively an RPG Mechanics 'Verse Isekai. The official reason is 'family tragedies.'
• Discussion about Homestuck: Beyond Canon, and by extension its predecessor Homestuck (especially after 2019), will almost always shift towards the controversial decisions made regarding the epilogue, the fact that much of Beyond Canon's content is/was locked behind a Patreon paywall, barely-existent communication between the authors and fans (including the news that Andrew Hussie ceased work on the comic breaking a whole year after he had actually left), and the authors' poor responses to criticism, most infamously sending a legal threat towards Sarah Z after she made a video documenting the history of Homestuck that, by their own admission, they hadn't even watched.
• If Raine Dog is remembered for anything, it's the infamous page where the titular character kisses her young owner, and the follow up page where she is effectively mutilated under the guise of "spaying" ^note though she isn't anthropomorphic yet, she's portrayed as sentient from the start. When it went viral in 2016 the creator Dana Simpson had to address that the comic wasn't advocating for bestiality, and she's ashamed of it and the comic as a whole.
• Eddsworld: The Beginning and the Friend is remembered for many things. Unfortunately, being a Fan Sequel to Eddsworld isn't one of them — rather, it's remembered for its questionable characterization decisions (in particular, Tord being depicted as obsessed with sex), an infamous scene where Edd is ravished by a group of anime girls without his consent being played for laughs, and the less than stellar behavior of the people who work on the comic; up to and including one of the crew's lead members telling a teenager to kill themself. Suffice to say, these are the things most likely to crop up in discussions of this comic.
• Grim Tales from Down Below, one of Bleedman's crossover comics, had a flashback early in its run revealing that, as a means of courting Grim, Mandy carried out 9/11. In real life, this was only a few years after the attacks, and so the wounds were still fresh for many of the people who called Bleedman out on using them so insensitively. Bleedman, in turn, responded to the criticism with enough hostility (including flat-out calling one person a "bitch") that he was suspended from deviantART for a time. There's a number of other ill-advised creative decisions, such as the romanticized incest between Grim Jr. and Minimandy, but the "Mandy caused 9/11" incident remains at the forefront even to this day.
• The Zootopia webcomic I Will Survive is mostly known for the infamy surrounding it. The comic sees Judy Hopps finding out that she's pregnant with Nick's child but deciding not to keep it, instead opting to get an abortion. Nick, on the other hand, objects and tries to convince Judy to keep the baby, which leads to a violent argument between the two and eventually their breakup. It quickly became a laughingstock among people for how blatantly out-of-character it portrays the two and being over-the-top with the melodrama. The author of the comic, William Borba, intended to show how even a One True Pairing like WildeHopps can fall apart. However, because he chose an unwanted pregnancy and Judy wanting to terminate it as the reason for their breakup, the comic drew hordes of pro-life and pro-choice commentators who cared little for the characters and focused obsessively on the potential abortion, even though the comic tried to avoid taking a side. As such, he is prominently remembered as the guy who wrote the "Zootopia abortion comic" even though he has done a lot of other things besides it.
• The The Loud House webcomic It's (Not) Your Fault by JaviSuzumiya was already unpopular among Saluna shippers due both to being created as a vehicle for Javi's One True Pairing Samcoln and Luna's portrayal within the comic. However, the comic didn't become especially infamous until page 130 when it was revealed that a drunk Sam, a teenager around fifteen to sixteen years old, had forced herself onto Lincoln, a preteen boy around eleven to twelve years old; resulting in the former becoming pregnant with Lina. This revelation was glossed over since the intended ship still ended up happening; and Lincoln and Sam are portrayed as a happy, loving couple in Javi's other artwork. The circumstances around Lina's conception caused so much outrage outside the comic that whenever it's brought up, it's more about how Lincoln married his rapist than the contents of the comic itself.
• Sonichu was already infamous due to its subpar quality and bizarre plot. However, it has since been eclipsed by the antics of its author to the point that it's borderline impossible to find a single review or analysis of the webcomic that doesn't extensively cover her.

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