Lonely Virgil posted:

stubblyhead posted:

Awesome boss posted:

Williams says the boss at the store told him he wants to give him more hours at work.

canyoneer posted:

Busted for murder by a parrot

"I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling bird!"

darkhand posted:

I like the guy in the hat just immediately comes back into the line "Yeah I'd like some Marlboro Reds please"

Centripetal Horse posted:

This is amazing with sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCGX0YnuXtg&t=65s

Kruller posted:

The clip around 1:00 in that video has the most amazing/horrifying sound I've ever heard someone make when getting knocked out. Like a literal bell being rung inside his head.

Internet Friend posted:

If you want some schadenfreude while you watch this keep in mind it was always found in the children's section of the video store. Think of all the 90s parents who rented this to distract their kids with no idea what it was.

canyoneer posted:

Busted for murder by a parrot

"I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling bird!"

Hillridge posted:

Ugh, his head straight up bounced off the concrete.

Combo posted:

Doesn't mean he didn't knock himself out on it, but I don't think it was a sidewalk or anything. Not sure why there would be a rubber walkway there.

dijon du jour posted:

Hey comic thread y'all were wondering earlier where the Pictures for Sad Children guy went? It is here, here is where he went.

You'll want to get comfy 'cause it's a loooooong read.

areyoucontagious posted:

So there's this webcomic called Pictures for Sad Children. The author started a kickstarter to fund a book, and got $51K (over his $8K goal). He has since had a mental breakdown, burning the books of people who have sent him emails about getting their book delivered. It's sad, because the guy clearly needs therapy and/or medication, but the fallout of him just taking that 51K and saying "gently caress you" to the people who gave him money is pretty incredible.

Purgatory Glory posted:

I'm sure this is in the thread somewhere but, for posterity, the guy on the rascal scooter who impatiently rams himself through an elevator door to his death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRTcZKHkENw

Internet Friend posted:

If you want some schadenfreude while you watch this keep in mind it was always found in the children's section of the video store. Think of all the 90s parents who rented this to distract their kids with no idea what it was.

HellCopter posted:

Unfortunately I don't think there's anything to laugh at here. This guy is probably going to kill himself, he's deleted anything he's ever posted online, and he's accusing the people who contributed to the kickstarter of "feeding the capitalistic system" by expecting goods in exchange for money.

Say Nothing posted:

M_Sinistrari posted:

Along with Plague Dogs and Watership Down depending on the video store.

Shadowmorn posted:

Am i wrong for feeling (briefly) irrationally angry at this guy for loving it up for other people?

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

It's hard to sympathize with a person who is going crazy, but I don't think you should be angry at a sick person.

Shadowmorn posted:

Just, some people kill for chances like his. You're right of course, but it still gets on my wires.

Best to not let this derail, bring on the schadenfrude for my our continued amusement.

car dance posted:

He misjudged the costs of book printing and lost money. He did not just pocket $51k. He is very depressed and I don't think anyone would kill to have a chance to watch their dream get all hosed up by costs.

He is so irrational right now that he thinks people should just pay him for doing nothing. I remember at the height of my depression feeling something like that and attempting to cut off all of my friends. I'm lucky I'm not dead.

The real schadenfreude should be the people who are angry about him squandering his opportunity.

ullerrm posted:

Meh. I don't blame the backers for being angry. You can be angry at someone while simultaneously sympathizing with them and wanting them to get help; it's not exactly a mutually exclusive emotion.

She's hosed up her life, and is acting out in a way that is simultaneously hilarious and concerning/depressing. I hope she gets help before she ends up dead.

Shadowmorn posted:

When the Wind Blows That was pretty worthy as a kid.

canyoneer posted:

ullerrm posted:

She's hosed up her life, and is acting out in a way that is simultaneously hilarious and concerning/depressing. I hope she gets help before she ends up dead.

Coca Koala posted:

There's some pretty crazy stuff in her tumblr as well, including a post where she defends how she went off on a guy for having the temerity to respond with cheerful and helpful advice to a girl who wants to be a webcartoonist, instead of telling a child that everything is terrible and nobody should try to be successful.

Pierzak posted:

Oh? Have a link? She's way beyond depression/mental sickness, it's like a perfect whirlpool of bad karma

a mother, in a message to Joel Watson posted:

My teenaged daughter has recently started a webcomic. Could you give her one piece of advice that has helped you and one piece of advice that absolutely has not? Please indicate which is which. Thanks!

Joel Watson posted:

Good advice: Make your comics and put them online, then make more then keep doing that without stopping for at least 2 or 3 years before you expect ANYTHING in terms of recognition or readership.

This accomplishes several things. 1) It keeps you from viewing your work as precious. Don’t obsess over one piece, draw and redraw, correct and perfect it all while never posting it. You get better by making MORE comics. Not by making the same comic over and over. 2) It gets you accustomed to the cycle of creativity. Have an idea, refine it, make it, put it up, repeat. 3) It gets you accustomed to taking and responding to feedback and criticism. The more work you post the more readers you’ll get and the more opinions you will start to receive directly or indirectly about your work.

More good advice: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be kind. Be kind online, be kind in person, be kind to your readers, be kind to your fellow artists, be kind to the world. This is important above all else because 1)Being an online persona means YOU are the product you are selling. If your product is a total dickbag, the only people who buy it will be total dickbag enthusiasts. 10 years down the road and you realize all of your readers are assholes and you’ve hand picked them because of how you acted. 2) Your peers talk about you when you aren’t around. They decide who to work with on collaborations, who to bring in on new opportunities and who share hotels/booths/wonderful experiences with at conventions. Word will get around SO VERY FAST if you are not a nice person and you will start to wonder why fun projects keep passing you by. 3) Can anyone honestly come up with a reason to NOT always be kind? When looking for a default behavior, you can’t do much better than this.

Even More good advice (lightning round): Don’t worry about merch. Worry about making good comics. Dont worry about getting more readers. Worry about making good comics. Don’t EVER compare your perceived success to that of your peers. You don’t know their situation, or how they came about what you think they have that you might want for yourself. Just worry about making good comics. Never envy your peers money, readers or success (sounds a lot like the last one right? That’s because it’s super important.) Instead, envy how hard they’ve worked and try to emulate that. Also, just worry about making good comics. Don’t try to find success by doing exactly what another artists has done. We all have different paths to success and you’ll do better finding your own rather than copying someone else (in art as well as in business). Also just worry about making good comics.

The worst piece of advice I ever got: Get an invitation to the cool kids table, i.e. Get in with this certain clique and you’ll be instantly welcomed into the secret world of webcomic success. This secret club, community, group, whatever you want to call it DOES NOT EXIST. I spent too many years waiting for artists I admired to take notice of me that I eventually started to obsess over making them like me. Spoilers, it never happened and I had nothing to show for all that worry and grief. I gave absolute strangers power over my mental well being that they didn’t even want and certainly didn’t deserve. Don’t worry about making “powerful” friends. You will make more friends in this industry by BEING a good friend first. Offer help, offer support, share your audience with artists whose work you admire. Be honest, be genuine and be kind. Repeat that 1000X in your head every day until it’s the only thing you even understand anymore.

By the way, the person who gave me that terrible advice was me.

John Campbell felt this was better advice posted:

Good advice: Your daughter will eventually receive sexually aggressive messages if she identifies herself as female and has public contact information available (e-mail, social media etc). It’s possible her work and contact information will stay in a small circle of unaggressive people, but if she works hard and tries her best, it doesn’t seem very likely.

If you haven’t already, you should ask advice from a female cartoonist. They’ve dealt with different things, and I’m sure your daughter has a female cartoonist she looks up to already. Someone else could tell you a lot more about what it means to be a woman with a public identity. It seems like it is different for everyone, but probably worth talking about!

More good advice: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be from an upper-middle class background, preferably white and North American. This is important because above all else: YOU are the product you are selling. If your background isn’t similar to the demographic of people who have free time and capital they want to spend on funny internet pictures, you may not receive much money for your funny internet pictures. I’m talking jokes about Star Wars, I’m talking jokes about Siri, I’m talking jokes about having more money than you need and buying things you don’t want.

If you don’t want to tell jokes, the important thing in a medium free from all restraint is to mimic corporate content as closely as possible. You can use anime, manga, nickelodeon, disney, saturday morning cartoons, anything a listless suburban child might rest their eyes on for respite from the white walls and identical houses.

Even More good advice (lightning round): The only thing you should worry about is making good comics. Don’t worry about what “good” means, or what “comics” mean, and don’t think about what “you” means. You should do a thing that is impossible to define, and when you are done say to yourself, “I have accomplished that thing I can’t describe.” You could think about how your comics are “not good” but what does that mean? Instead, brown sliced onions in a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper at medium temperature for about half an hour. Afterwards whatever else you put in there will taste pretty good. Get some rice or noodles or bread going. Comics don’t exist.

The worst piece of advice I ever got: Don’t criticize other people, it will come back to haunt you. These are small social groups and we need everyone’s support. Everything is fine, the power structures are fine. The stories being told are fine, the people with the money to fund the stories are fine. The cultural expressions pushed to the periphery are fine, the suffering people our cultures ignore are fine. Actively choosing privileged voices and perspectives to be told, repeated, and propagated, that’s fine. Manufacturing huge amounts of living matter into dead objects meant for the garbage dump is fine. That the voices in authority are still primarily male, affluent and light-skinned, that’s fine. They can tell us which non-males, which poor people, which dark-skinned people we should pay attention to, which deserve to be allowed into our social and economic groups, and that will be fine.

John Campbell, in an entry titled 'Joel Watson is the Only Reason I am Leaving Webcomics Forever' posted:

Joel Watson is the original author of the webcomic question and answers I responded to in an aggressive way a few weeks ago. He writes and illustrates the webcomic “Hijinks Ensue” and lives in Dallas, Texas in the U.S. In his responses to other people’s defense of some of my points he has made it clear that, like a lot of white men, he is uncomfortable being referred to as a white man, so in this post I will refer to Joel Watson as a black woman. Pictured above is Spike Trotman of Iron Circus Comics. She and Ayo were both recently interviewed on Inkstuds by David Brothers.

Joel Watson, a black woman, understandably feels upset that I responded to her positively-intended webcomics advice with acerbic, condescending criticism.

In order to express my disagreement with Joel Watson, a black woman who I love and respect and who I believe has innate value as a person but who I think has not taken the time to think a lot of these things through, I want to reiterate what might be the “content” of my original “hateful parody” with less “snark” though I will still refer to Joel Watson as a black woman.

Does sexism happen? Yes. Does it happen to most women at some time during their lives? Of course. Does it happen to some women a lot of the time? Certainly. Does it happen to every woman every moment of her life? Is hyperbole the MOST AMAZING WONDERFUL FANTASTIC THING EVER?!?!?!?

We are sexists, our culture is sexist, and because of that, women (all women, 100% of women and 100% of all men, and everyone) are affected constantly by social structures and patterns of thinking and behavior that limit what we can conceive of for ourselves and each other, and this directly and negatively affects the nature of our reality for everyone everyday.

By not communicating anything about this reality to an adult watching over the development of a female person who will be directly affected by these social dynamics, I felt an opportunity had been lost. I felt this was emblematic of male-dominated creative cultures that want to believe we are past misogyny “except for in superhero comics” or whatever exaggerated misogyny we can tolerate nearby so we have something to point at and say we’re better than.

This has nothing to do with Joel Watson in particular, except in as much as it has everything to do with every particular person and how we choose to conceive of the world around us and how that affects all of us. Because Joel Watson is a black woman and one of the few black women making a living off her comics work online (I don’t know of one other than Spike Trotman, and I’m not sure if it would be worse if this is because of my ignorance or because there are no others), I was surprised she didn’t have a broader view of these things to begin with.

I think this next quote sums up where I part from the culture of webcomics forever. Thank you for reading so far.

Nearly 50% of the world’s population, over three billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day.

33.4 million people have AIDS and 2/3 of those people live in a 3rd world country.

870 million people are starving. 850 million of them live in a 3rd world country.

"There is no webcomics industry" doesn’t matter because nothing matters. The world is an industry of suffering. An industry of pain. We should all just give up now because the fact that we are able to sit at our computers, or on our phones and freely express opinions on the Internet while not starving to death or fighting for our lives day in and day out means we will never know the truest depths of human suffering. How can anything I say or do ever matter if there is even one person out there who has it harder than I do? Or, is that argument perhaps completely ridiculous?

No one has ever made this argument, but it is a good argument to pretend has been made if you’d like our current social order to continue unabated. No one told Joel Watson that her suffering didn’t “count” but she still felt it necessary to recount her personal hardships. As much as I love and respect Joel Watson, and we know that she is an intelligent and strong black woman, I think she has made some fundamental mistakes with respect to her conception of the world.

To look at our world as “an industry of suffering” and accept this as the current state of affairs is understandable. The world can seem like it is made primarily of suffering with occasional breaks for not-suffering, and if you find a little break for not-suffering why wouldn’t you try to stay there forever? Why not live safely, in the suburbs, forever? Only Joel can answer that question for herself, but I can tell you why I will not be spending my life this way.

Suffering is inevitable for all of us. It is unavoidable and the fear of suffering helps to magnify our pain exponentially. Without the fear of suffering, any possible behavior is open to us. Because I have memories of past suffering and present empathy for others, I have the desire to reduce the suffering around me.

Joel Watson, a black woman with a voice in popular culture, has an important role to play in expressing her perspective and experience. Since I was born a white male, I think the most productive thing I can do in this culture might be for me to give up as much of my privilege as I can conceive of, and renounce systems that want me to experience “pleasure” or “safety” (as defined by our culture) at the direct cost of the suffering of others. I understand that other human beings come to different conclusions about living. This is where I’m headed.

The number of people suffering unnecessarily would be effectively reduced by humanity, I think, if we became less prone to accept the suffering of others as “inevitable” and the suffering of ourselves as “undesirable.”

And I say “men AND women” because the fear is rampant on both sides. Sexist men are afraid of women and people like you and John are encouraging women to be afraid of sexist men. You aren’t warning a female artist to be wary of sexism, you are ensuring that sexism will live inside her (as fear) and persist forever.

Sexists in comics and on the Internet are just extremely focused jerks. When you stop giving jerks power by fearing them, and just do whatever you want to do without asking them for permission or approval, they eventually get tired and go away.

I believe that discussing things like this does not give power to fear. I believe that discussion of negative aspects of reality, even those that some people don’t experience or feel responsible for or feel comfortable hearing about, is what will actually help take the fear out of our social spaces. I believe there are many negative aspects of our culture that will not be affected by ignoring individuals. I believe that the social structures and ways of thinking we have used to damage ourselves for generations will not get tired and go away. Deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior do not need our attention; they survive more easily the less people enacting them are aware of what they are doing.

The point I am trying to make is that fear in general will harm you more than the person or thing you are afraid of. When giving a young artist advice, I tend to steer more towards encouragement than “here are some things to fear.” I certainly don’t have all the answers, and my examples above do not apply to sexism in all it’s forms. People can be really awful to each other. My only goal is to steer people towards being less awful to each other.

Better than educating each other about the structures of our world, better than changing our behavior, better than reevaluating our assumptions about ourselves and each other and the world around us, better than all those things is being nice. Let’s be polite about the continued destruction of the natural world.

Let’s be kind about the dissemination of sexism, racism and classism through systems of value that are flawed and broken, and whose proponents and participants have moved their self-preserving prejudices away from conscious exclusion of named communities to unconscious fear and lack of empathy for the other, which each individual participant in the system consciously believes that they do not have and that they are not responsible for this perspective’s negative effects on others.

Let’s allow the information that surrounds us to exclude low-income minority communities, most likely a short drive from wherever you are if you are in the U.S., who are being terrorized by economic violence, by prejudice, by law enforcement. If the system you live off of and uncritically participate in is an “industry of suffering,” then occasionally someone who has been ground into the dirt by that industry of suffering will wander into the gated community of your life and say something rude to you.

Just discussing these kinds of things from a different perspective is “rude” or “mean” or “condescending” to a lot of people, but uncritically supporting economic systems and patterns of behavior that hurt people every day is “inevitable” and “normal” and “fine.”

In order to turn masses of suffering people away from the safe spaces created by our affluence, we must tell ourselves stories to make ourselves feel powerless. This is “just the way it is” and there’s nothing we can do about it. There are too many suffering people for us to make a difference in their suffering. This story provides us with the attitude we need to shut out our natural empathy through years of its retelling. This preserves the current order and allows some people to believe they are avoiding suffering by maintaining their positions in hierarchies that can be made to appear stable.

I think the desire for everyone to be “nice” is an easy way to dismiss people who are strongly, negatively affected by cultural values you support. I think that the webcomics people I have spent my time around are too nice to seriously consider using their tremendous affluence to affect the system that gave them that affluence while preventing it from reaching others. I think rich people are afraid. I think if you are strongly, personally offended by someone pointing out you could’ve let a little girl’s mom know that life isn’t always easy for girls on the internet or in the world, I think that means you are afraid of your own responsibility, your culpability in this complex web of cultural and social interrelationships we inhabit. Maybe you’d like to do something about it instead of being afraid. If you don’t, I don’t want to know you.