Webcomic A Case Study In Descent
People sometimes wonder why Sinfest has so many images and pages and links to what is now, essentially, an angry and not terribly coherent alt-right political cartoon. The short answer is that you had to be there. The long answer is that self-radicalization can happen more quickly and completely than you'd think.
Sinfest was never a perfect comic strip even in its prime, but it was, you know, a comic strip. You'd tune in once a day to catch up with a wacky cast of lovable (or at least "lovable") characters and their misadventures in a caricature of the absurdities of the modern world. Or for one of the artist's experiments with calligraphy. Or for one of the surprisingly heartfelt storylines, like a succubus falling in love with a nerdy bookworm and both of them finding love and redemption through each other. Or for some, in hindsight uncomfortably prescient, political commentary based on parodies of pop culture.
Speaking of warning signs, from pretty early on there was a bit of an undercurrent of contrarianism to Sinfest, of rejecting the mainstream and popular for being mainstream and popular. This began to coalesce in the infamous Sisterhood subplot in 2011, which infamously came more-or-less out of nowhere and began to completely dominate the strip. About a year later, this is also where, as a younger man, I started to bow out. This didn't just happen because I disagreed with the points the Sisterhood was making, for the record. I thought and think that some of them made decent points about the way society mistreats or commodifies women, and I think some of the backlash was and is unfortunately telling of the other major point of the era, that some people will lash out when faced with learning they don't want to hear.
But, while the Sisterhood era still had the odd silly joke or whimsical moment, could still have entire strips about a character's love of pumpkin spice lattes or an elderly witch playing with the leaves while sweeping up in the fall, after a while it was just kind of a downer, you know? The art was still mostly appealing, but it was all a bit much, especially when a bunch of stupid chaos gremlins took over. I think Tangerine and the rogue fembot were my personal breaking points, rather than the Sisterhood themselves.
Years later, while revisiting a lot of the nostalgia of my youth, I took a peek at what Sinfest had become, and immediately rushed to the YMMV page here to gawk in horrified fascination. It appears, just from looking at the timeline, that out of a mixture of tacking his colors to trans-exclusionary radical feminism, contrarianism gone mad, and being an increasingly terminal level of online to engage with contemporary right-wing politics (which have themselves gone in an increasingly toxic and reactionary direction, that's all I'll say about that) the artist has gone into an increasingly tightening spiral of self-radicalization in response to the backlash to the last bit of self-radicalization. Just in the few months since I started infrequently checking in to r/sinfest, so as not to overly depress myself, the comic has gone from blaming everything wrong with America and the world on caricatures of trans people to literally ranting on the weekly basis about the evils of the Jewish people. It can't be overemphasized how out-of-nowhere the antisemitism went from normal, background radiation levels that permeate lots of Western culture to literally showing Jews bathing in blood and controlling the US government with their wealth. In some ways, it's a blessing that the old cast almost never seems to show up at all, and then only for brief cameos.
What's the lesson here? Well, I'm not some wise sage, just some stupid Internet phantom. But to the extent I can think of one, it's this: don't just define yourself in reactionary opposition to things that grind your gears and throw in your lot with anyone and everyone who shares your reactionary opposition to stuff stupid kids like. And maybe have a bit of self-awareness once in a while about why you think the things you do. Also, don't constantly flood your brain with social media maybe.
Webcomic Self-righteous in all the wrong places.
Long story short, Tatsuya seems to be a guy that was doing his dudebro thing, then either got educated on social justice or decided to start incorporating it into his comics.
From a pure enjoyment perspective, I honestly can't vouch for much of his later stuff. About 90% reads like an illustrated blurb by a social justice blogger. For the most part, this is morally good, but makes for repetitive and emotionally draining reads. What I remember of his earlier strips seemed pretty good: usually funny and with a progressive attitude. I'm not sure what changed though. An archive binge of his new stuff will make you actually laugh maybe once or twice, but engender many groans through how anviliciously he tosses around otherwise sensible morals.
Tatsuya is certainly a complete tryhard when it comes to gender politics. He reads like the mirror universe counterpart to a conservative cartoonist, complete with a weeping Lady Liberty. Yet, however much Tatsuya views himself as a white knight, his strips still often uphold many harmful views to women. Most common of these offences is a prominence of slut-shaming, with sex workers portrayed as fallen and corrupted victims of the patriarchy, rather than... women who are sex workers. Slut-shaming attitudes usually seem to be an overflow of his VERY accurate and appreciated criticisms of the porn industry, though, which at least explains, but does not excuse, his actions.
Anyway, word limit looms in the distance, which prevents me from going in-depth on all these talking points, so I'll just rattle off what I can remember to put down. Also, I haven't read every single strip, so if there's any you'd like to bring up as counterargument, please do. Alright, here we go.
No trans or genderqueer characters to date, trans rights never brought up. Tatsuya possible rare male TERF? Must investigate further. Pretty much everything DMH said. The part about Sarah Palin is irritating for obvious reasons. Satan has gone from a comedic representation of generic evil into just a sexist dude, which is boring to watch. Satan is a brony, and as a person who hates bronies, I like this. Not totally sure what most people more into the hardcore feminist movement would think, but his use of "Kill All Men", etc. seems... appropriative?
That's all that'll fit. I encourage comments!
Webcomic Sinfest Review
I don’t know what happened to Tats, but clearly something big because now the webcomic has curve balled into an activism comic, specifically towards women, cisgender women. Sure we got something for black people a few times, (and a random throwaway panel for an Asian girl, of which now we know is Asian) but that was in conjecture with the shootings and seemed like easy bait for people who are into ham fisted SJW stuff. Oh, also anti-porn, because porn is the ultimate evil. Women have never chosen to go into porn and none of them like doing it. Don’t seek interviews of women in the business who says they enjoy it, those women are lying.
But onto the point, how did this turn change the quality? Well if you were a fan of Sinfest of the past, remember all those political comics Tats made, and how they were in-your-face, not really funny, and just telling people what they already know and/or enforcing a view that you may not share? That’s this whole comic now, pretty much 24/7. Except it’s actually worse than that.
At least back then, there weren’t at least 27 storylines going on at the same time (the last time I counted, it has since grown). The characterization didn’t go back to square 0 and changed on from there to a large chunk of the cast. Those that haven’t changed don’t show up much or don’t talk if they do show up (save for Squigly). Tats insults ANYONE who doesn’t view him as right. The pacing has come down to a slog (and how can you with so many stories going everywhere). And the daily newspaper style doesn’t work for the way Tats wants to tell his tales at all. And pretty much the comic feels like a giant punch in the gut to all those who enjoyed Sinfest in the past. One thing that is the same to the older political comics was an influx of characters that weren’t needed.
My final words are this; Sinfest’s biggest strength was its characters. They were vast, charming, interesting, and sometimes even complex. The storylines may be weak at times, or were fantastic, but the characters were it’s driving force, and in the end, sometimes everything turned out alright. Now the characters are a shell, a shadow.
So what does this comic have working for it now? Nothing.
Webcomic Patchwork
I knew vaguely about Sinfest for quite a while without reading it or learning about the whole Broken Base radical feminism thing, so I had a pretty fresh opinion. Bored, I decided to a do an archive binge, which took about 3 or 4 days. I got past the initial Sisterhood plot, then suddenly found whatever energy I had for the series slowly bleeding away with each comic. I found Ishida's character building and character dramas before the Sisterhood to be mildly amusing, actually quite enjoying the romantic plots with status quo conclusions and generic snarky sexual tension dialogue. Maybe they were a little cliched, but I'm a sucker for them anyways.
My complaints at the time were that every time there was a politically themed strip or one that shallowly complained about the troubles of the world like a concerned citizen writing into a newspaper, the same identical frown crossed my face. There wasn't much specific to complain about (other than the election strips, those were... extra frowny), but a theory started to swirl about my head as I read into and past 2011. I think that our author doesn't have much of a personal philosophy, a way of thinking about life through the lens of things that HE experienced and HE figured out and HE rationalized. To put it simply, he takes up banners made entirely up of someone else's thinking instead of taking patchwork from several different views and forming his own.
So what does that mean for the comic? Characters lose their characterization and become strawmen without complexity, just symbols of things the artist considers good or bad. The one shot comics are more often not something mindless about men being bad, porn being bad, dismissive arguments etc. Even as someone that agrees with a portion of the fundamental ideas, the main thing I noticed is that it's just boring to read about over and over again, with no exploration of ideas and counter-arguments, no rounding out of the characters. The series has Cerberus Syndrome bad, but while he heightened the seriousness of the tone and story, there is not an accompanying rise in thought and and analysis with it. For me, it all falls flat. I think he may have realized this by mid-2014 and is trying to write his way out of it, so time will tell. I really did prefer the earlier strips.
I'll admit the art is getting pretty, though.
Webcomic Incredible storytelling, horrible politics.
Tatsuya Ishida is one of the best creators on the web, especially for the past few years. He knows how to make you laugh, cry and cheer. His art is beautiful, his characters are loveable and I can never wait to see the next part of their story.
Unfortunately, Tat likes to think he's a political cartoonist. Well, propaganda artist would be more accurate.
While, as a progressive thinker myself, I find myself agreeing with Tat's ideas, the way he presents them come off as farcical and naive. This started around the 2008 election in which Tat would present Barrack Obama as the saviour of the people while Sarah Palin was a cross dressing pig. Also, all corporations are represented as being funded by Satan. This makes his views incredibly hypocritical when he tells us to ignore the government's propaganda despite the fact he makes his own.
His latest creation, the feminist biker, is quite possibly the worst of this. A misguided attempt at white-knighting women, Glossy, as fans have dubbed her, is a feminist version of Seymour and Lil'E, but instead we are meant to side with her. Unfortunately she has no character that can be empathised with and is clearly a Mary Sue, as she is the only mortal character who can threaten Satan in a stand up fight. Also, many women would find her offensive as Tat seems to have many issues with sex, portraying women who are open with their sexuality as evil while the good ones are more modest, thereby slut shaming women and proclaiming detractors as being exploitative.
But thankfully this comes and goes. Tat eventually grows tired with politics and returns to the much more enjoyable characters, although it can seem like an eternity for him to do so. I do find these stories to be well worth the wait though and would encourage anyone to check it out.
Four out of five all up.
Webcomic How the mighty had fallen.
While I am late for the party, comparing previous Sinfest strips to current ones is like watching the comic itself tying itself onto a bolder and jumping off a cliff into the Mariana Trench.
So to start this off, lets talk about Pre-Sisterhood.
It was a rather charming comic, with enjoyable characters and a consistent plot. The plot focuses on Slick and Monique, as it follows their relationship and all that happens around them, the characters are flawed while still being rootable.
While some jokes didn't land, it was still a rather charming comic, with many enjoyably written arcs and stories.
Now, lets get onto the sisterhood.
I am not sure what has happened to the author pre-sisterhood to post-sisterhood, but it seems like suddenly, he made a radical decision to turn the script into a personal mouthpiece for his views.
The problem I have with post-sisterhood is simple, the messages the author wishes to push onto us are delivered ham-fistedly with little nuance, and the views he agrees with at the time he's writing is completely innocent with no sin whatsoever.
Treating one side as right and the other is wrong can be rather worrisome, as that sort of idolization can lead the person to delve further and further into the extremist views of that side, and such, the opposing side's views are ignored, no matter how much the person might have agreed with them.
And secondly, as he turned the comic into his mouthpiece, he has pushed aside all of the character development, gags, story, and even the characters themselves to spout his opinions. If he really wanted to voice his opinions on political matter, he should have created another comic for that and build an audience for that. But rather he went ahead and warped an already existing work of his to suit that, while doing himself no effort in shifting his audience, rather he alienated his already existing one.
I would put a ending message for my review, but I couldn't think of one that fits at all, so all I will do is put my ratings down here:
Pre-Sisterhood 4/5
Post-Sisterhood 1/5 (The only star comes from the artwork.)