Webcomics You Know Aren't Great But Keep Reading Anyway

I feel this way about Something Positive sometimes. It doesn't make me LOL anywhere near as much as it used to due to Cerebus Syndrome but I still keep reading because I enjoy the delicious cynicism.

Again with the data mining, dear Aunt?

Las Lindas. The characters are irritating, and it relies WAY too much on fanservice, but I keep coming back for Chalo's art. Its just so bright and cheerful.

Warriors, torchbearers, come redeem our dreams. Shine a light upon this night of otherworldly fiends.

^Taking a quick skim of the latest page and one older page, I can see why you'd stay for the "bright and cheerful" art. But holy geez, the fanservice is distractingly pervasive.

Sometimes, I wonder if some authors (or executives) understand the concept of "too much fanservice" or "misaimed fanservice"...

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

A certain Doctor Who fancomic springs to mind. I mean, heck, the current story is a crossover between the Doctor and Gem And The Holograms for chrissake. But I love the art style, and the storytelling is charming, if not particularly complex.

Shortpacked is another good example. I mean, I'm not at all interested in toy subculture, some of the dramatic arcs are eye-rollingly melodramatic, and the art isn't particularly awesome, but... I dunno. I guess I got kind of involved with the characters. Which is unusual for me. Sneaky writer is sneaky!

But somehow,◊

I have stayed away from Las Lindas because of that pervasive fanservice. If a comic makes me want to punch the screen, I stay away.

Shortpacked!, despite the exclamation mark title and aforementioned melodrama, I keep on my regular lists. I don't know why anymore. Maybe it's because the melodrama is so over-the-top I don't care, and that the toy stuff is still funny despite me having no idea what the collectors are thinking there.

Another one that is very good, in my opinion, but which doesn't update enough, is Zebra Girl. The man just doesn't update enough, is the problem. It used to have a once-a-week schedule, but it's now "when I get around to it."

Sakamoto demands an explanation for this shit.

I just gave Las Lindas a try out of... curiosity. That's it. Anyway, the fanervice doesn't bug me so much as the glorification of the farming lifestyle.

I've lived on a farm. No sane living being would voluntarily continue that lifestyle. And no, everyone does not wear plaid and flannel shirts and horse-drawn anything is found exclusively as lawn ornaments.

Jay Naylor's comics. I know that the author's a total jackass, his main character is the Marty Stu to end all Marty Stus, and his political opinions are extreme at best. But they're just such a guilty pleasure. I'm too interested in the stories to give them up. Besides, the shading on his newer comics lets me ignore how bad the art got to be.

Also, why is El Goonish Shive on this list so much? I mean, Your Mileage May Vary and all, but the quality of the artwork improved DRASTICALLY since the beginning, the plots are interesting, the characters are fun, and it gives you a legit excuse not to think of yourself as a pervert for liking certain things, even offering you a bigger pervert to make you feel better.

edited 4th Sep '10 3:12:13 PM by burinnu

I'm in your fanfiction, correcting your spelling.

That's part of the problem

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

Dominic Deegan. I've seen all the criticisms and Alternate Character Interpretation, agree with a lot of them, and still check back regularly to read it.

I think it's more because I love the minor, comic relief characters rather than caring about the actual story arcs. :3

Corgis are a Welsh bread. I'm delicious.

Penny And Aggie, which I did try to stop reading but started again within the last few months. It's still just as much of a trainwreck plot as usual and nothing that happens resembles normal human behavior and speech. Also, a strange fixation on converting apparently most of the female cast into lesbians. All I can say is, can't we at least have Stan come out of the closet so poor Fred can get a date?

Kevin And Kell, which fell into sheer boredom and seriously Jumped the Shark during the inexplicable vampire storylines that dominated Lindesfarne's wedding and several stories after that, plus its increasingly disappointing love affair with the Contrived Coincidence to the point that all stories must have an anti-climax. ("Har har, Edgar roared and lost the match! Luckily a deer got hit by Leona's ambulance and cancelled that out!") I still maintain Holbrook isn't a horrible writer, but I'm getting much more enjoyment out of his syndicated strips than this one.

I agree with all of those points except for the last one. Maybe it's just because Dan and I have different tastes, but I find the massive amounts of Author Appeal off-putting. The dialogue and pacing could be stronger, like I said, and Dan himself has admitted that he should have planned parts of the story better. The end result is a flawed comic that still manages to be entertaining. It's not terrible, but it's amateurish compared to most of the webcomics I like enough to keep up with.

edited 5th Sep '10 12:58:35 PM by ThePaintedMaypole

Ctrl Alt Delete I do still read it, it does have it's moments, but they are fewer and farther between than they used to be.

Also, Bigger Than Cheeses. I'm sort of glad it's officially ending, and I want to stick with it until the end. But if it didn't end I might have ditched it sooner or later.

I have a sort of unusual case here...Dinosaur Comics isn't a bad comic by all means - sure, it's the same every time, but the writing's working hard to support it - but every time I read it it puts me to sleep. Either it's teal deer, or there's really no life in the dialogue. But I keep reading it. Mostly because of all the random trivia I learn from it.

Also, Collar 6. Not into the subject matter, frankly confused by the plotline, can't look away.

edited 6th Oct '10 12:39:37 PM by Carth

I have no idea why I'm still reading Questionable Content. I've excised the rest of the comics that I got tired of, but for some reason I'm still reading it anyway despite every strip following the pattern talking-talking-talking-forced 4th panel joke.

I still read VG Cats, even though it's stopped being funny for me for a long time.

Ruining everything forever.

Looking For Group: Uhg, Sohmer's writting can be detestable sometimes, but I just want to know how it ends.

Dominic Deegan: Sure the art is crappy, barely improved over years, and the story is dominated by something of a Mary Sue, but I'm bored enough to be interested and it isn't really repulsive.

Ctrl Alt Del: Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. Buckley's turned himself around and started drawing for real, and Ethan has become less of an Anti-Sue.

My other signature is a Gundam.

El Goonish Shive. It's like consistent improvement isn't interesting enough - I see his promise and wonder if he's going to make today's comic work or fall flat. The commentary is a dreadful idea,BTW. Why explain the thinking behind each and every comic?

edited 13th Oct '10 9:39:07 PM by AckSed

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Ack Sed: I completely agree with the commentary thing. What's even worse is that it violates every Don'tExplainTheJoke rule known to mankind.

New User Handle

Rob And Elliot has lost a lot of its charm since I started reading. I keep checking out the updates, though, mostly hoping that it'll get back in the groove again.

Penny Arcade is great...when I get it. A lot of times, the joke just flies over my head. And the penis jokes. They're just not funny.

Weird in a Can (updated M-F)

Dominic Deegan had some coolness in the past but now tends to be unbelievably overwrought and plain old boring. Still keep up just in case it gets better, though.

Sins is cute but confusing as all get-out. I find it easier to treat it as a gag-a-day strip than an actual story.

edited 15th Oct '10 9:23:07 AM by Cidolfas

1) Las Lindas. After a while many of the characters started to get annoying to me, and by this point I'm mostly in it for the fanservice and the odd chance of something interesting happening.

2) Drowtales. Hoo boy, this one... I read this one before the big retcons happened and by this point I just want to see where it all leads. The art is nice and it does present some pretty interesting ideas, but generally succumbs to some pretty bad fantasy tropes.

At this point, I only follow Looking For Group for Richard.

Dominic Deegan; I originally read it as a " Well this is kinda bad, but I'm sure it'll get a lot better!" - type of thing.

That definitely didn't work as expected, but as with a lot of things, when I'm already up to date ... I might as well go on, see where it ends.

Even if it's a deep dark road that just leads to constant disappointment.

Pixel artist extraordinaire