If You See Something 3/6/09

by the Dude who does "Alien Loves Predator"

Owen: This is the comic the guy from Alien Loves Predator started writing after he quit writing Alien Loves Predator, except he didn't really quit writing Alien Loves Predator.  It's usually political.  This one didn't make sense to me for most of an afternoon, and then I got it.  The joke is that both of the video games are mostly just about shooting things.  Right?

Victor: No, it's just dumb. And kind of racist.

Owen:  It's racist cause she's Indian?  That is actually kinda racist.  Fuck, I got the joke wrong.  I suck at reviewing web comics.  

Victor: I'm not sure how much sense this guy is trying to make.  His intent is hard to pin down.  This seems to tread somewhere between Failed Attempt at Being Absurd and Failed Attempt at Being Funny.

Owen: I'm throwing in the towel.

Victor: DUDE! you can't give up, we're not done!  Naw, whatever.  I just wanted to also say that after wikipedia-ing around for like three seconds, bindis appear to have "no longer signify age, marital status, religious background, or ethnic affliliation" in their modern usage.  Just saying.

Owen: That bold text looks good.

Victor: Bolding shit is a cool look.

Buttersafe 3/5/09

by Alex Culang and Raynato Castro

via Lauren Gardner



Owen: We were going to do another one from this website, but then we liked this one better. This is funny. I like the little ghost guy with the pineapples. This resembles other shitty web comics, but manages to be funny by not being lame.

Victor: I like how the pineapple man disappears before the windshield glass that he shattered even had time to fall to the ground/car's hood.

New Blog Style Note #2

You should note that we have made some changes to the style of wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com. We made the title of the blog, "We Hate This Web Comic" very big, like this:

WE HATE THIS WEB COMIC

But bigger.

We did some other shit too.

Like changing the color of the titles and links and stuff.

Dresden Codak Part II

Owen: So, to recap from yesterday: We were having a very interesting conversation about the legitimacy of criticism when we were unfortunately relocated and our blogging devolved into Victor being really high and ranting about something. But I want to say that I really agree with what Victor said last night, which was that when you think about something for long enough, any criticism or analysis begins to see arbitrary, pointless and pointlessly subjective. But yet, I can't help but wonder why I feel emotions when I look at web comics and other forms of artistic expression. It's true that I can't really justify any criticism of web comics. But I can't help feeling what I can only describe as hatred when I read many web comics. Usually that hatred is watered down to mostly indifferent disdain, but it still exists.

Victor: I think these feelings you describe might have something to do with the fact that bad art still takes effort, and while you have empathy for that effort, the fact that it was sort of for naught (i.e. they wanted you to laugh and you didn't) is disappointing. You think: someone spent this much time and effort on this comic strip (for example) and was proud enough to put it on the internet so everyone else could look at it and laugh, and maybe his/her friends like it or even strangers like it but for whatever reasons (which are always contextual or "cultural" to a degree in a loose sense of that word) you don't care. And your own apathy towards this other human being trying to make art and communicate his own subjective universe in a way that is somehow "objectively" accessible fills you with a low-grade existential dread maybe? It's kind of sad to consider that anything can be removed of context is meaningless. It makes you wonder about why we do anything. I guess this only a negative thing if you have a qualitative definition of meaninglessness. The more meaninglessness bothers you, the more generally upset you are because the world is full of things that upon close inspection illustrate their own meaninglessness. Also, a joke in a comic strip has the disadvantage of not having the element of surprise that a joke in real life has, as it has an allotted spacetime that has been explicitly designated as a funny spacetime: there is an agreement that when you look at this space for x amount of time you are to laugh. It's the expectation that creates the disappontment, not the thing itself. The root of all suffering is desire. A person decides to read this blog and expects us to talk about why we hate certain web comics and instead they read us doing the old dorm room wankfest and they are disappointed.

Owen: I hate you.

Victor: Fair enough.

Owen: But I agree that the root of all suffering is desire, which only really applies to my life in terms of art.

Victor: And hats.

Dresden Codak

by Aaron S. Diaz



Owen: Well. This comic uses a lot of big words and symbols and formulas. Making it pretty hard to make fun of. However, I'm pretty sure that it's not funny. I do like the drawings though. It's a bit "Tony Millionaire", especially with the combination of detailed drawings and esoteric words.

Victor: I think anything is pretty easy to make fun of. Watch this: THIS SHIT IS WACK. See? Naw actually I liked the drawings a lot. I feel you on the Tony Millionaire. Plus a little bit of Edward Gorey and that Finnish chick Tove Jansson. GOOGLE THAT. For some reason I laughed at "I possess absolute causal knowledge of the Universe!" with his eyes all bugged out. But then I got bored and stopped reading. TOO MANY WORDS DUDE. I REALLY LIKE WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS FOR THE "YELLING" EFFECT!

Owen: I wonder if it's supposed to be a pun on "carnal knowledge" or if "causal knowledge" is it's own phrase. I googled some things and came to the conclusion that this comic doesn't make any fucking sense. Actually, it's kind of just a lot of references to different things thrown together for no particular reason, kind of like this blog. Do you think it's a viable form of criticism for us to just point out all the other things that certain web comics remind us of, in a way that diminishes their originality?

Victor: Well, before I answer that question Owen, I'd like to point out to our (apparently ten-ish now?) readers that this is the first official usage of a new style we proposed to implement in our previous post. We gave you an example in that post but this is the real deal. OK, so regarding your question, I think the only way I usually think/talk about shit is by referencing other shit, some times to Shit A's credit and sometimes to Shit B's credit or sometimes to the credit of both Shits A and B or sometimes to the credit of neither. I'm not sure what a "viable form of criticism" can/could/should/would/ought look like. I kind of see this blog as us continually realizing that the more you think about anything, the less justification there seems to be for criticizing it and the more arbitrary and absurd our personal senses of aesthetics/etc. are. I think "causal knowledge" is a thing. Let's Google it. OK, Googled it. It does exist. I don't feel like reading about it though. [LOCATION CHANGE NOTE: We just changed locations. We're writing this on another wireless. Live blogging. This girl named Amanda's house, all our readers might not know her. Well Bob, Kathy, Hima and Terence know her at least. Someone just emailed me this link: http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Indie-(for-Girls). Pretty fun in theory already and I haven't even looked at it. Oh shit, I forgot that I was writing this in an Editorial Bracket Thing. OK, end brackets.]

Owen: Dude, you are really high right now.

Victor: I know, I know. What were we talking about?

Owen: To be continued...

New Blog Style Note

From now on we're going to put line breaks in between our "lines" to make it easier to read.

ie:

Victor: This sucks.

Owen: Yeah, I agree with what you said it totally sucks.

Cat and Girl

by Dorothy(at)catandgirl.com



Victor: I didn't read this. The dude looks like a mix between Catbert and the dude in Achewood.
Owen: Oh, and it's also stealing...what is that comic?...fuck...can't remember...don't care.