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First impressions of "Skin Deep": - Author is one of those morons obsessed with Tumblr-style reader questions - Starts with mopy college freshman being told how special she is and meeting wacky people - Turning into an animal as a metaphor for queer awakening Conclusion: LOL BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 12:46
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Conclusion: LOL
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Feb 26, 2016 12:53
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:- Turning into an animal as a metaphor for queer awakening That's the one thing I'm not really seeing. I don't think Skin Deep is meant to be any sort of metaphor for anything, I don't see it as having any sort of pretension beyond the author daydreaming about fantasy creatures being real.
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Feb 26, 2016 13:06
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:- Author is one of those morons obsessed with Tumblr-style reader questions does "Tumblr-style" mean like in-character text RP, or does she do reaction comics? Because responding to reader questions with comic reactions was a thing on DA waaay before Tumblr Cat Mattress posted:That's the one thing I'm not really seeing. I don't think Skin Deep is meant to be any sort of metaphor for anything, I don't see it as having any sort of pretension beyond the author daydreaming about fantasy creatures being real. Comparing queer people to rare and special magical beasts who probably have magic abilities that would let them easily take anyone in a one-on-one fight does have some Unfortunate Implications.... man why do people keep using monsters that way in comics? Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 13:24
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Nuns with Guns posted:does "Tumblr-style" mean like in-character text RP, or does she do reaction comics? Because responding to reader questions with comic reactions was a thing on DA waaay before Tumblr "Tumblr-style" is probably wrong. She answers a reader question daily with some sketch on hiatus. addendum: 
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Feb 26, 2016 13:54
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Nuns with Guns posted:Comparing queer people to rare and special magical beasts who probably have magic abilities that would let them easily take anyone in a one-on-one fight does have some Unfortunate Implications.... man why do people keep using monsters that way in comics? "Minorities, here represented by freaks and monsters" seems to be a common thread among allegorical stories. I guess it could be trying to say that if you're gay or what have you, this is what society makes you feel like. But I think it's more just that the author is usually seeing more of themselves in the opressors. I think the only time I've seen the regular ol' relatable humans be the minority is The Last Cowboy.
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Feb 26, 2016 15:02
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The basic idea is fine, it's just muddled up by factors the authors bring in themselves. Like X-Men. They represent a minority, but they go to a private schools, fly their own jets, and all look like supermodels. It becomes a allegory for how the upper classes are persecuted by the masses.
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Feb 26, 2016 15:26
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Also unlike minorities they are actually dangerous on account of shooting lasers and whatnot. I read a very good analysis of that a couple of days ago, I'll see if I can find it again.
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Feb 26, 2016 15:41
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95% of Skin Deep's cast also seems to consist of wealthy dilettantes who exist entirely in coffeeshops and/or snarky bohemians who appear to make a living out of nothing but underground music gigs and poo poo-talking their friends, so it makes the whole social-struggle angle even harder to swallow.
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Feb 26, 2016 16:24
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That's why I don't see any social struggle aspect at all. Compare to Monsterkind.
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Feb 26, 2016 16:31
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paradoxGentleman posted:Also unlike minorities they are actually dangerous on account of shooting lasers and whatnot. I read a very good analysis of that a couple of days ago, I'll see if I can find it again. Again, that's something that still works in principle. After all, societies isolate and marginalize its "dangerous" classes. You just need to accept laser eyes as metaphorical, so the story isn't actually about the rights of laser-eyed people. The class elements (private school and jets etc.) is where X-Men's allegory falls apart. e: Oxxidation posted:95% of Skin Deep's cast also seems to consist of wealthy dilettantes who exist entirely in coffeeshops and/or snarky bohemians who appear to make a living out of nothing but underground music gigs and poo poo-talking their friends, so it makes the whole social-struggle angle even harder to swallow. The other thread has enjoyed Monster Pop (not to be confused with Monsterkind) for some time now, and it's somehow even worse about the monster minority thing. The author has basically forgotten that the comic was originally about that and not anime high-school crushes (in college). The recent entries of Monster Pop had a literal lecture (in a university and everything) about how something being seemingly plotless isn't a bad thing, but it's interesting just to throw characters together and see how they interact. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 16:44
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Cat Mattress posted:That's why I don't see any social struggle aspect at all. Yeah, I don't see Skin Deep as an allegory about social struggle either. It's really just a fantasy world scenario. Remember the cartoon Gargoyles? Secret monsters live all over the world, only a select few know about them. Heck, some of them could even appear human. The It's just that, but with more kinds of monsters. The fact that this has some crossover with furries and otherkin is probably an issue for the author, but that doesn't seem the intent, either.
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Feb 26, 2016 17:05
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But Gargoyles was hugely about social stigma? Like that was probably the most dominant theme in the entire show?
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Feb 26, 2016 17:33
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Was it? I honestly don't remember a while lot about the show.
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Feb 26, 2016 18:52
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Wait, isn't Monsterkind also about the persecuted monster minority that are all tall handsome men, or am I unfairly characterizing the comic? I remember I dipped back into it recently but was really really offput by the one character who seems to be Beaker scaled up, complete with giant grapefruit-sized eyes.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:17
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Necropolis continues to be fantastic, although this is the last update until April.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:25
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Just Offscreen posted:Necropolis continues to be fantastic, although this is the last update until April. It just goes to show, never bring an enchanted sword to a fist fight.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:29
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RoboCicero posted:Wait, isn't Monsterkind also about the persecuted monster minority that are all tall handsome men, or am I unfairly characterizing the comic? No, that's a pretty fair take from what I saw of it. It pushed the persecution angle pretty hard but the monsters live in what looks like an upscale gated community and the unresolved homoerotic tension is laid on so thick that you could copy-paste a speech bubble reading "JUST KISS" into every panel without really losing the overall effect.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:31
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Monsterkind is good
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Feb 26, 2016 21:15
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Bobulus posted:Was it? I honestly don't remember a while lot about the show. "The access code is... 'ALONE'."
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Feb 26, 2016 21:18
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Bobulus posted:Yeah, I don't see Skin Deep as an allegory about social struggle either. It's really just a fantasy world scenario. Remember the cartoon Gargoyles? Secret monsters live all over the world, only a select few know about them. Heck, some of them could even appear human. The It's just that, but with more kinds of monsters. The fact that this has some crossover with furries and otherkin is probably an issue for the author, but that doesn't seem the intent, either. Yeah I think this thread is reading too hard into it; the discrimination allegory isn't in every plot about supernatural creatures in the modern world. It's more like wizards in Harry Potter. RoboCicero posted:Wait, isn't Monsterkind also about the persecuted monster minority that are all tall handsome men, or am I unfairly characterizing the comic? The point was that it's a compare/contrast thing. Monsterkind actually explicitly is a metaphor. mycot fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 21:19
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A big failure of these sort of fantasy minority-persecution stories is that they seem to be really bad at explaining why there's persecution to begin with. Why is Big Gay Muppet Beaker or Blue Vampire Man a target of fantasy racism? Why would regular people shun Green-Haired Rich Bohemian Griffon? If these stories bother addressing these questions at all, it usually ends up being "because racists are jerks" or "an evil man is behind it all" and then quickly move on, but that just does the story a disservice. There are good stories to tell when exploring why people are homophobic, or racist, or transphobic, as well as solid stories to be told about the emotional and the socioeconomic effects of racism, but those stories tend to be ignored in favor of showing characters we're told are oppressed sipping coffee and strumming guitars/blogging/attending university until maybe (if the author feels it necessary to remind the viewers that the characters are the targets of discrimination) some regular human shows up, angrily yells "YOU PEOPLE" and then there's a chapter of crying. Like, props to Poppy, there's reasons said and shown why possums are shat on by the rest of society there. Vattu seems to be doing a solid job of showing what it's like to be part of the downtrodden minorities, on top of being a story about Fantasy Arminius.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:25
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Ofaloaf posted:Like, props to Poppy, there's reasons said and shown why possums are shat on by the rest of society there. I agree that the animal racism in Poppy is much more nuanced than in any other story I've seen with something similar. Everyone is nominally ok with possums, it's just that when it comes to anything significant people show how they really feel.  edit: As an aside drat you guys really hate coffee houses. mycot fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 21:34
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Wait, Vattu still isn't finished? 
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Feb 26, 2016 21:45
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mycot posted:edit: As an aside drat you guys really hate coffee houses.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:49
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I agree that it's important to provide some clarity as to why the discrimination exists in the form chosen in the comic, but I also think these stories (ironically) don't tend to represent a lot of diversity among their monsters as people. The ideological conflicts tend to be very, well, suggestive of discussions among young artists. This thread, for example, spent some time discussing Christian symbolism/imagery like it was bizarre or "weird", but if you go out and about, a very good number of people are Christians and having Christianity be a strong theme in someone's work is not strange at all? For fun, I did a story with a politically conservative monster and a lot of people told me it was loving weird.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:52
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Pick posted:I agree that it's important to provide some clarity as to why the discrimination exists in the form chosen in the comic, but I also think these stories (ironically) don't tend to represent a lot of diversity among their monsters as people. The ideological conflicts tend to be very, well, suggestive of discussions among young artists. This thread, for example, spent some time discussing Christian symbolism/imagery like it was bizarre or "weird", but if you go out and about, a very good number of people are Christians and having Christianity be a strong theme in someone's work is not strange at all? For fun, I did a story with a politically conservative monster and a lot of people told me it was loving weird. I think that's a general genre fiction thing. Ultimately people want to write about what they like except for the occasional gimmick (like you said). Ofaloaf posted:I drink coffee like it's water, but young people sitting in a cafe, mulling over their social lives and ruminating on the meaning of whatever is absolutely bougie as gently caress. The coffee house is an integral part of South Korean culture and I will stand for it.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:58
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if webcomic writers were actually talented they wouldn't be writing webcomics
Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 22:09
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Counterpoint
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Feb 26, 2016 23:05
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Hogge Wild posted:if webcomic writers were actually talented they wouldn't be writing webcomics if this is really your attitude towards webcomics in spite of all of the incredible work that's being done what are you even doing in this thread
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Feb 26, 2016 23:45
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Empress Theonora posted:all of the incredible work that's being done 
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Feb 27, 2016 00:21
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Move over Mona Lisa
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Feb 27, 2016 00:25
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I felt a need to check this thread, and it seems my source of liver failure once again is the cause.
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Feb 27, 2016 01:00
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Hogge Wild posted:if webcomic writers were actually talented they wouldn't be writing webcomics mate if you had talent you wouldn't be posting. but seriously.. c'mon dude why do you even post this? what should web comic creators be doing instead? making print comics? like what is your metric for talent? How much money a person makes? Those marvel movies are the pinnacle of human creativity. It's ok to enjoy things, like yeah there is some crap out there, but like why don't you take some stock in what you are doing with yourself. it's ok to admit there are some pretty neat comics out there, but beyond that earnestly trying to create a comic is pretty hard and puts you in a very vulnerable position. do you need a hug? or have you had bad friends your whole life? come with me SA poster Hog Wilde... and find a thing to enjoy on the Internet 
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Feb 27, 2016 02:12
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Hogge Wild posted:if webcomic writers were actually talented they wouldn't be writing webcomics
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Feb 27, 2016 02:27
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webcomics are fun
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Feb 27, 2016 02:27
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i am grateful for the fine folks who put their pictures and stories on the internet for me to enjoy 
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Feb 27, 2016 02:44
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I'm grateful too for the most part, but my grandpa didn't kill Hitler with a bible in one hand and a crying bald eagle in the other just for me to withhold my own opinions about discrimination allegories in fantasy settings.
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Feb 27, 2016 02:59
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Well I still think it's worth discussing them, like that's part of having respect for a property is discussing it like the art it is.
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Feb 27, 2016 03:02
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Ofaloaf posted:I'm grateful too for the most part, but my grandpa didn't kill Hitler with a bible in one hand and a crying bald eagle in the other just for me to withhold my own opinions about discrimination allegories in fantasy settings. Did he kill Hitler with the bible, the eagle, or like his feet?
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Feb 27, 2016 04:23
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