we hate this web comic?

BOB: Yeah, I hate everything about this.

VICTOR: Filled with a rage I can't explain. Or can I?

OWEN: Is this a comic?  This is stupid.  I think probably most people are just "fuckwads" (what is a fuckwad?) and the Internet just gives us a forum on which to express our "fuckwad" thoughts.

Anyway, explain your rage.  I'm confused.

OWEN: Oh he makes penny arcade.  This dude sucks.

 VICTOR: I actually just glanced at this and sent it to y'all. I barely read or
thought about it at all.

Something about "hypertext" / all perception as reference ... ?

What would Marshall Mcluhan say?  (wwmms)

Same vague rage as always I guess.

Y'ALL SMOKE WEED?

I'm actually not even stoned on weed. YET!

Naw but really i gotta go leave the Internet now. Sorry to blog and run.

VICTOR: Oh wait I thought I had to be somewhere ten minutes ago but it just
got bumped to 6.

BACK IN THE GAME

 OWEN: Are you stoned on weed yet? I don't really have anything to say.  Most of the people who act like assholes on the Internet aren't even doing it anonymously.  I think we need to all just realize that the Internet is no longer a separate thing that is not "real" and stop making inane observations about it.  But I guess we'd all be out of a job then.

BOB: This is my job?

VICTOR: Wait, Owen, you mean you haven't been paying Bob anything out of the massive amounts of advertising revenue we make from this site? 

OWEN: Bob is still working on a "trial basis."  I thought that was clear.

james kochalka is making a video game

Victor: i don't really like playing video games. i really like them in theory and but i usually suck at them in practice. i like looking at them and moving a character around in a video game world but i never liked the stress of trying to win them. the only video game i ever beat by myself were donkey kong country, earthworm jim 2 and star fox. but when i was trying to beat them i would always have a couple of those shitty one or two hours of frustratingly trying to do something hella stupid like jump over a snake or some bullshit. i know some people say those frustrating moments are important in video games because they lend a greater sense of accomplishment when you get to the end but that's on some classical narrative arc shit that i find silly. i don't play video games to feel like i accomplished something because winning a video game accomplishes nothing. most of my anger in those "why can't i just jump over this fucking snake" moments is also thinking "why am i getting so angry about not being able to jump over this snake? there a million more useful things i could be spending my time doing. like what? oh shit, i'm in middle school and life is meaningless!" i've always found the best aspect of playing video games is simply feeling like you're somewhere else for a while. i'm pretty sure the first time i ever heard "moonlight sonata" was on the level of earthworm jim 2 where you turn into a blind cave salamander and have to swim through an intestinal tract. i was like twelve years old and it "BLEW MY MIND" because i was "AN IDIOT." i'm really feeling combining capital letters with quotation marks.

but katamari damacy is probably the only video game i've played that i felt really lived up to my expectations of the artistic potential of video games. and i didn't even beat it, my roommate did and i just played it with no time limit because i just dug rolling the ball around and "hanging out in" katamari damacy. it was pleasant and i for some reason felt like i was somehow learning something about myself and the world (Y'ALL EVER SMOKE WEED?). james kochalka actually once posted a link on his blog to this essay on "world building" in literature/art/games here: http://www.hicksville.co.nz/PerfectPlanet.htm that kind of speaks on that in interesting ways.

but yeah, maybe this "glorkian warrior" game will be good? dude does talk about his ds a lot. pause? i guess he did say he's "very confident" he could make a good game...

also, this is a great wikipedia page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[shit, blogger doesn't let you rick roll]

Bob: YOUTUBE PREVIEW DUDE

Victor: naw yeah i still think it's funny with youtube preview.  it's kind of funnier. but on the real i just spent the last half hour looking at that wikipedia page and remembering all the amazingly wack games i'd play at my friend's house or we'd rent from blockbuster or cop wholesale at toy liquidators:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Chicken

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkanoid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Dudes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Chess
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Skyhawk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Earthstar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatris

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Kool

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig_29_Soviet_Fighter

then we moved to alameda and we got a super nintendo and i would rent other wack shit from video maniacs across from the produce stand where i would later lose my virginity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcana_(Super_Nintendo)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClayFighter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Spot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Instinct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Rage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Rodent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zool

Victor: i would've rickroll'd all of those but i'm lazy.

Victor: video maniacs is now a multi-level parking lot for a multiplex theater. paul's produce is now dan's produce.

Owen: yeah, i hated video games when i was a kid.  basically i didn't have any video games so i would go to my friends house and play, die immediately, and then watch them play for like two hours and then my mom would pick me up and i'd be like, "they suck" and then i'd get in trouble for not having fun.  but it's kind of the same thing as not enjoying poker, or scrabble, i just really never care about winning, but i have had good experiences with video games, like blade runner on the computer was definitely my favorite game ever, for sort of the same reason as you were saying victor, it's the closest to really inhabiting a different world as i've ever had in a game, because there is a narrative and you can "win the game" but it's less clear cut than in games like mario or street fighter or whatever.  you can also just spend hours wandering around talking to people and doing random shit too.  i also really liked the spiderman video game that came out after spider man 2 because the "web slinging" was actually really fun, you could "web sling" all around new york, i think i did that for like two hours. 

i think the james kochalka game might be cool.  i'll probably play the online version but not buy it.  also kickstarter is hell of crazy.  people will give money to anyone if they have good graphic design.

for a while i thought that video games were actually really cool, but i don't know about that.  i saw some video game art here in shanghai, and it was pretty much the same shit as everyone else who ever does video game art, like nintendo games hacked together, except with like communist shit in it. 

i did see some awesome art by liu dao, who i thought was  a dude, but is actually a collective of dudes, which is kind of weird but whatever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Dao

i mean, it's sort of annoying because really i only liked two of the pieces, and now i don't know if they were created by one person or not, but i guess that doesn't really matter.  any way it was like interactivy video gamey LED shit.  which is so cool!

i really want to play katamari damacy though.  what system is that on?  we are dorks.  hey you guys want to go to barcade? on like march 15 or so?

Victor: hahahaha barcade. i think katamari damacy is on playstation? playstation 2?  you realize you are a white man in asia blogging about videogames? CLASSIC NERD!

naw but yeah when i saw the commercial for that spiderman game i figured if i ever played it i would just swing around for two hours and not fight crime. just like if i were the real spiderman. naw i think i would probably "fight crime" (whatever that means) if i were the real spiderman. or maybe just save people from fires. maybe i would rob a bank too. but if i'm fake spiderman why go through all the effort? i'll just swing around. 

i also really dig playing grand theft auto with hella cheat codes for that same aimless wandering effect.

but yeah, i think i'm feeling this liu dao shit.

you peep that cory archangel joint at the whitney biennial a few years back?

i really dug it at the time though i was bad at explaining why.  i think i still am.

there's also this:

and this:

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[shoot, blocked in japan for some reason]

Bob: i cant tell you how much i loved video games as a kid, and as a young adult, and as a somewhat-functioning adult (which is what i call college years), but i don't think i ever got the jazz from winning as most kids did, and in fact, when i felt i was nearing completion of a game, i would purposefully meander and lose lives and play levels over and over just to keep the experience going. i havent played a game in years (except katamari), so this might be the least biased about video games that i've ever been, and if i had to say now, i would figure that for me, growing up, it was totally about that mind-displacement experience. the only thing i loved growing up were movies and video games and comic books and action figures (Y'ALL EVER SMOKE NERD?), all of which were about immersing oneself in a completely different world – and of all of those, video games was the best, for obvious reasons.

I also will admit that I grew up in a household where mental acuity and puzzle-solving were treated as a more admirable quality than anything physical or social, so video games were often an even better outlet for me. having a meaningless goal within a distinct set of rules with effectively zero consequences – which is the basis of every single video game – was exactly what my lil bob brain craved. when the novelty of the mind-displacement experience of a certain game had worn off, i could always fall back on completing that shit for completion's sake.

that being said, katamari is by far the best game i've ever played, i think because it knows and recognizes that that displacement is all video games are about. it knows all ya wanna do affect the world around you, and it does that in the most tactile way video games can allow.

which is why that slinging shit in spiderman was so awesome, and i definitely did that for a couple hours in a best buy once.

im down with archangel stuff definitely, because his shit points out that it's not just straight interactivity that people crave (if they did then his games would be "fun") and it was way ahead on that 8bit lofi haxx0r shit, but im sad that his style's sorta become a trend/aesthetic (though the liu shit is kinda dope) which just sucks cause he made his point so clearly and simply that it don't need to be said again. basically im just annoyed that no video game art has been any better or more adventurous than shit he made 8 years ago.

oh though i did hear about a video that Penn Jillette made called "Road to Reno" or something where you just drive a bus from Vegas to Reno, and it goes real time, so you just drive down an empty road for 8 hours (probably looks a lot like that archangel piece), and when you get there, you get 1 point. And they made so that the bus drifted to the right every so often, so you couldn't just tape down the accelerator button and walk away, you had to sit there and drive it. i thought that was pretty dope. any art that says "You want fun? Fuck You" i fucking love. like that movie Funny Games. and the act of talking to girls.

anyway, is this a blog?

Victor: talking to girls is the most dangerous game.

Bob: see, and some real games were way better video game art than anything today:

Owen: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, life without youtube sucks.

on the other hand, i just watched my 6 year old cousin play lego star wars wii game for like 2 hours (he's still going) and it was totally a lot like the conversation we've been having about video games, like he's a little too young to actually understand what's going (young bob weisz playing video games is hilarious btw) but he's just killing shit with a light saber. (sabre?) and he's completely immersed in the game, like when i ask him if he wants breakfast (he's been up since 6am btw, when he woke me up at 7 he was like "i've been waiting for an hour", LITTLE KIDS ARE INSANE) he doesn't even respond (kind of like victor checking his email at the studio sometimes) and i had to physically move his head so that his eyes were facing me before he even realized i was saying something to him, and he was like, "i'm not hungy" because he's only been playing wii for 2 hours so far. also, my 10 year old cousin actually refers to me as "cuz" like exclusively.

guest comic week

Owen: so i think there is something called guest comic week going on or something, at least it seems like a lot of people are doing guest comics for other web comics.  anyway, i that's how i found this comic because the guy did a guest comic for some other comic that we've made fun before.



Owen: i don't have anything particularly negative to say about it, except that the joke is a pun.

Bob: good pun, and again, being mean to dying people because they're dying is funny.

[i dont know if i ever made that point before but the 'again' worked really well for cadence]

this chick is hot

Owen: her comic is not good but for some reason i kind of like it

her blog: http://mariakonstantinov.tumblr.com

Victor: what? her comic is hella funny, and gets funnier as you scroll down.
she is so mean to the cat. that's funny. and i read it before i saw
how hot she was so i'm pretty sure it's not just because she's hot
(though she is a "TOTAL BABE"). or maybe the fact that you even said
she was hot had already affected how i read the comic?  or maybe the
fact that the comic is funny makes her hotter?  like how the chick in
telepathe is cute but becomes a "TOTAL BABE" when she's singing and
doing "COOL FILLS" on the drum machine?  maybe also part of why she
seems so hot to me is cause the lady she draws in the comic isn't
particularly hot so i expected her to be not that hot but then so like
in comparison she's hot?  i just said "hot" heckof times.  why does
this lady draw knees as circles?  i guess that's ok. do i only think
that's ok because she's hot? no, i actually think that's ok.

Victor: yoooo also weird is how her stuff:
http://cargocollective.com/mariak#166615/SIGNS looks a lot like my
ex-girlfriend's stuff: http://kathymacleod.com/ who also drew comics
about her cat. WHAT UP, KATHY. do you still read this blog? my bad for
having an internet crush on your internet soul twin.  who's my
internet soul twin? momus? naw, that was a joke. kind of an inside
joke. kind of a regular joke.

Bob: i got to this email convo by clicking my "newer" button so didnt read the subject line before reading her comic and i can say, as a dude reading the comic without knowing she was a TOTAL BOMBSHELL RUSSO-CANADIAN HOTTIE 2.0, that cat shit was indeed hell of funny. BUT I MIGHT HAVE A BIAS MYSELF as a former cat master who spent a lot of free time making sure my cat felt sad and abused and unwanted. so like, i got the whole "ITS SO TRUE" tickles in my brain, and that felt good. Then I saw she was a HOTTIE 2.0 and that tickled me another way. and yeah her stuff is totally reminiscent of kathy's shit. though when i first read that comment i thought owen was writing it and was like "whoa owen dated kathy too?" and wondered if that was a weird tension between you two on tour and on this blog and maybe I should reread every entry on wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com to see if there is some underlying tension written into your conversations. but then it was you victor, and now i have nothing more to say.

Victor: TOTAL BOMBSHELL RUSSO-CANADIAN HOTTIE 2.0

Owen:
for some reason, www.saddestcat.com is blocked in china. 

bob, you read your email by clicking the "newer" button?  that's insane.

i'll reread saddest cat when i get to japan.  maybe i'll think it's a good webcomic.  we've gotten kind of bad at hating on things.  i'll have to find some shitty bull shit to read.

Bob: yeah dude, i was reading an "older" email before your "newer" one, WHAT OF IT

also you're going to japan? THATS INSANE.

you gotta collect some good wacky bass-ackwards physical webcomics while youre there.

also i heard they have dirty panties for sale in vending machines.

Victor: you realize you're a white man in asia blogging about web comics, right? CLASSIC NERD!

Owen: oh god, i'm going to kill myself now.

ha

Victor: this is funny

do you think jokes about canadians are funny?

Victor: not really. didn't we write like three reviews about this comic already though?

Owen: three?  really?  maybe.  nevermind!

Bob: i heard the closing ceremonies of the vancouver olympics were a tacky celebration of all the famous stereotypes of canadians, like william shatner singing on top of a giant mounties hat, and maple leaves playing hockey with some mooses, and so on. i wonder if they were trying to finally put an end to those impossibly stale jokes by doing them way bigger and weirder than we've done it (outside of that South Park song at the oscars), like the weird kid at the end of the 80s movie who realizes and embraces his weirdness and shows his true self to his love/school/parents and then none of them make fun of him for that weird stuff any more. why don't we like canadians again? they aight in my book.

also yeah this comic is aight (dot blogspot dot com). yeah it's making fun of canadians, but it's a little absurdist (=hah), and the punchline is pretty well done (=haha). and yeah this is like the third time i seen this dude on this blog.

THIRD TIME, OWEN.

GET YER SHIT TOGETHER.

Victor: i think someone in the comments from the last one we did (the st. francis one) said that the artist is a lady.

Owen: have we really done this three times?  i wasn't even paying attention.  i heard about that canadian olympics thing though.  it sounds totally insane.  i wish i could watch youtube right now.  also, i met a canadian guy the other day, who lives in shanghai, and he was like so bummed that he missed the olympics in canada, he said it was all that he ever wanted when he was a kid growing up in vancouver.  but then he moved to asia or something.

Bob: IF CANADA'S SO GREAT, WHY YOU IN ASIA, DOOD??

Victor: EXACTLY

Owen: he said kyoto was the canada of asia (i'm going to kyoto on sat) but he doesn't even live there.  he lives in the new jersey of asia.

Victor: this guy sounds like he sucks

Bob: EXACTLY

this is like a literary online comic

Victor: this is aight. the art kind of reminds me of reid fleming: world's
toughest milkman which i used to love, or like maybe one of the dudes
who wasn't crumb who did harvey pekar's shit? the writing's whatevs,
inoffensive i guess. thiswebcomicisaightiguess.blogspot.com (heyo bob,
can you rickroll that? my computer's acting a fool again).

Bob: thiswebcomicisaightiguess.blogspot.com

Bob: also yeah this webcomic is aight. i think it floats to the top of the webcomic shitpile just because it doesnt try to do the super egregious or non-sequitous punchline, or worse the super egregious or non-sequitous post-punchline joke (SENOSPPLJ). even though the joke of someone belying their point with their explanation is pretty overused (viz EVERY LINE IN THE OFFICE), its still funnier than not being funny at all. also i think casually admitting to someone that you stalk them is funny. thiswebcomicisaightiguess!

Owen: is it funnier than not being funny at all?

this guy also made something called jugalo news which is also ambiguously funny:
http://therumpus.net/author/jon-adams/

Victor: yo wait this is fucking hilarious

Victor: actually it's going a little long now.  whatever, i'll sign off on it. IT'S OFFICIAL.

i think this guy has lost his touch

Bob: this is like if dan clowes had a baby with dan clowes and they named it dan clowes and then all three got depressed about what was on tv.

Owen: everything in life reminds me of something else that was sort of weird.

Victor: dude with a charlie brown profile picture said: "This is really nicely
done, Andrew. Understated enough that it hits all the right notes. The
lack of panel borders works particularly well too, I think, to convey
these sort of disconnected flashes of thought. I love the subtle
gradient on the game screen."

i feel like a bunch of conversations happened like this when they were
mixing the owl city album.

Owen: AHAHAHA.  OWL CITY IS SO BAD.  I was literally crying with laughter the first time I saw their myspace.

Also, are we now also making fun of the comments left by the friends of the comics we're making fun of?

Victor: yeah, why not?

man i heard owl city for the first time a couple weeks ago on the
radio. i literally could not believe how wack they were. i thought it
was a parody of the postal service but it's like the number one single
in the us or something.

Owen: yeah, it's kind of amazing.  it's like that video of that terrible band we watched last night except if people actually liked it and weren't just watching it because it's terrible (i just reread this and that might not really be that accurate).  their myspace pages has photo albums that are just like pictures of balloons and clouds and shit. 

the secret though which is kind of disappointing is that they're christian. 

Owen: nick earhart showed me their myspace a few weeks ago (it was on superbowl sunday actually) and i totally lost my shit, i couldn't stop laughing.

Victor: ooooh shit, they're christian? that completely explains it.

Bob: who the fuck is owl city?

Bob: OH JESUS CHRIST

Bob: "Owl City has been compared to The Postal Service, with a number of publications going as far as accusing Owl City of "ripping off" the Postal Service.^{[1][16][17][18][19][20][21]} "

hahaha.

you must be pretty shitty to have a baker's halfdozen of references on your wikipedia entry dedicated to how much you suck

this is definitely a rip off of something

Bob: its a rip off of how Dinosaur Comics explicates philosophical and existential concepts and then settles or subverts them with very basic human (/dino) thought and emotion. but it's also not a rip off, CUZ IT BLOWS MOGWAI NUTS.

Owen: isn't it more directly a ripoff of something else?  i don't really read dinosaur comics.

Victor: mogwai nuts must be so small

Owen:




Bob:


Owen: yo this dinosaur comic just totally fucking destroyed that xkcd comic. also, the dude from dinosaur comics apparently just discovered gradients.

these people make both of these comics

Owen: i shouldn't even bother mentioning that they are terrible.



Bob: this why i hate bennington.

Owen: are they from bennington?

Bob: if not then these comics just got them full scholarships.

Victor: OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH! BURN!

Bob: WATCH IT VIC, YOURE NEXT

NEXT ON THE LIST TO GET A SCHOLARSHIP FROM BENNINGTON

Victor: ZEN KOAN: WHAT'S BIGGER THAN CAPS LOCK?

Bob: i was going to make a BIGGER THAN LIFE joke (it wasnt going to be funny) but when googling it i found something way more interesting and pertinent:



WOW FUCK THIS SHIT, AMIRIGHT?

also this might be a wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com first, when our tangential conversations have led us full circle back to shitty webcomics. high five dudes.

Owen: wow, this comic is unbelievably stupid.  this also really proves what we were saying in this comic review: http://wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com/2009/06/hemingway-comix.html
nice work bob.  you're really pulling your weight around here.

Bob: I BEEN STUDYING YOU GUYS FOR YEARS

also that comic reminds me of that thing called like Baker's Law or Miller's Law or something, which states that in any type of argument, if you ever use Hitler or Nazism to make a point, your argument is immediately invalidated. i think that should also apply to comics. no matter what, you use Hitler to make a joke (especially with him as a meme), it is immediately unfunny. the only exception is when Evan Dorkin's Third Reich From the Sun. that was pretty funny.

Victor: remember when the internal advertisements on nbc or cbs or whatever referred to third rock from the sun as "third rock?"  do you think people in regular conversation ever went "you catch third rock last night?" do you think the successful comedy series thirty rock owes at least some of its success to the fact that it sounds like third rock?

Bob: definitely

this guy is irish

Victor: hate the irish. they're all monkey men.

Bob: this dude read too much perry bible fellowship and not enough porn.

Owen: this is kind of like the same joke of about 60% of all new yorker cartoons, which is, put an animal (dog, cat, mouse, something weirder) in a situation that a human is supposed to be in (therapy, the bank, a store, college).  that's pretty much the whole joke right?  i mean, i'm not as offended by this comic as i am by most online comics, but it's still not funny.  it's like 'haha' the dog is emotionally scarred and he just told the police, who are apparently taking the dog seriously and maybe they're going to arrest the two boys.  and the faces of the boys are really demonic and weird, but i can't tell if that's intended or not.  i mean is molestation funny just because it happens to a dog?  what is going on?  also, i read some of the guys other comics and they i don't get them at all.  i guess that's a theme at wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com now.  hopefully after we post this some commenter will explain everything to me.  

Victor: irish people are cretins, am i right? garbage. filth.

Owen: fuck you man

Victor: what?

Victor: why all the aggression, man?

Owen: oh i thought you were just playing a joke on me cause i'm half irish, but i guess you just actually hate irish people.  that's weird, man.

Victor: i don't think it's weird at all.  the irish are all ape people. more
animal than man.

Owen: so i'm half descended from more animal than man.

Victor: what's your non-animal side?

Owen: welsh.

Victor: oh god, wales is a demon colony. how did i never know this about you?

Owen: remember when i used to tell girls in england that i was welsh?  that was sort of a dumb joke based on something that is probably a little bit true.  actually i've never been able to trace my lineage on my dad's side very closely (i also haven't tried that hard), but roberts is a welsh name.

Victor: i hear it's hard to trace welsh lineage because all the welsh just
emerged from one big swamp in central wales. WHAT UP BOB!

Bob: i thought the people that emerged from the big swamp in central wales were the afrocuban jews, who over the course of three hundred years fucked their way across the ocean and america to settle in San Francisco WHAT UP

Victor: yeah this is all detailed in my book FUCK ACROSS THE OCEAN: A BRIEF
HISTORY OF THE HALFRO-JEWBAN DIASPORA

Bob: it's brief because it's literally just 9 drawings of your ancestors hardcore boning on some rafts and handcars.

Bob: but there's a centerfold.

Bob: of just your pubes.

Victor: actually we edited it down to just the pubes centerfold

Bob: good talk guys.

Owen: best blog

yo this sucks and its weird

Victor: ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI WAS THE PATRON SAINT OF ANIMALS, GET OVER IT

Victor: yo this is kind of hilarious.  i kind of think it would be better
without saint francis' brother in it though. like garfield minus
garfield.

Bob: this picture rules

Victor: that picture is a million times funnier than the web comic in question.

Bob: and i found it in the dude's description of why his comic is funny.

Victor: so this guy is alright.

Bob: no it was more like "i'm making fun of st francis for liking birds and here's a bunch of paintings of him with birds as proof that my mockery is valid and funny" and one of them was the aforementioned awesome and hilarious pic with no mention of how awesome and hilarious it was.

but actually i dont really hate this webcomic that much. at least not enough to wanna keep arguing about it. so yeah, this guy is alright.

Victor: oh word. ok.  you're alright, bob.

Owen: the other guy who isn't st francis kind of looks like one of the characters from "the critic"

Victor: that's true

Owen: maybe it's something else, i can't remember.  i just googled the critic and it doesn't really look like any of them.

Victor: shit, i believed you. it felt right.

Owen: maybe it was a minor character.  actually i think he looks like caesar from some animated video.  was that disney?

Owen: or like some dude with a fig branch or whatever that greek thing is.

Owen: fuck i can't find it on google but i know exactly what it is.

Victor: it's ok, owen.

Owen: do you think this is a simulacra?  i was thinking about that word the other day and what a stupid bullshit word it is and how much people like using and i'm sure i've used it plenty of times when talking to girls about random shit.

Owen: he was wearing a toga.  what's an animated disney-esque movie with togas?

Bob: Space Jam

Bob: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_%281997_film%29

Victor: finding nemo.

Owen: gmail is outing your rickrolls with it's youtube preview feature.  that's part of why i didn't totally get what was going on when victor sent me that link, cause i watched the whole stupid rick astly video thinking that one of the dumb commentary bubbles would explain what it meant.  also, i think hercules is the right answer to my question, but i'm asking the wrong question.

Victor: FUCK! i was going to do the same thing with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

but my shit was too slow.

 

Bob: wait yeah, he totally looks like the dad from the critic. without the glasses, same face though. what was his name.

 

Bob: franklin

 

Owen: close

 

 

not quite

 

Owen: "In an interview, Baudrillard stated that The Matrix misunderstands and distorts his work."

 

Bob: yeah youre right, not really. its the nose that's similar. i bet it's some throwaway character that was used for a really good joke which is why we all remember.

 

Bob: JUST LIKE REALITY, MAN

 

Victor: wow, baudrillard is GOIN IN.

this is another one by the kid who did that funny robin in the rye one we wrote about last year:

http://wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com/2009/01/robin-in-rye.html

i don't really get this though:

 

Victor: this is a simpsons reference. if you go back a page it appears to be a pokemon reference. i don't know why this guy is doing this. this reminds of this part of this interview with the dude who directed the lil wayne documentary:

Your documentary shows Lil' Wayne isolates himself from the world with weed, syrup, and headphones. He's completely in his own mental space, but as he gets more isolated, maintains the same level of material output and connects with millions nonetheless. What do you think about this duality?

That's a really interesting question. Is he actually connecting with millions? Or is it a one-way transfer? Is he getting any type of response from the fans? Does he even care? You'd have to ask him that question. I mean I suppose he cares somewhat but I see him more as a Lee Scratch Perry type of musician. He's making the music as a physical release. Like in the same way Jackson Pollack painted. If you stop him from making music he's going to have to find something else to do with himself. Lee Perry said "Music is the only comforter." It's the process that gives life meaning, not the end result.

except i really like lil wayne, lee scratch perry and jackson pollock and i don't really like this web comic.

Bob: victor are you saying it doesnt matter that the end result of this dude's comic-drawing is super shitty because it's the process of drawing comics that gives life meaning? because that would completely negate the purpose of this aggro-blog and deflate my self-worth as a human being all in one fell g-swoop. i hope you are saying that though, cause that's a pretty dope way to say "i quit" or rather "i hate we hate this webcomic"

buuut i dont think yer sayin that, cuz this webcomic sucks and you hate the artistic process as much as the next guy (me). we all know the end result is where it's at. and this end result sucks. it's not a real reference, nor is it even a rip-off, it's a putrid, terrifying amalgam of the two, a straight and poor (like me) copy of the original joke without any modification but to take it out of all the context that made the original funny. there is no way to understand this comic without having seen the original sequence, and even when you have, the poor use of the medium renders most of the jokes NOT FUNNY. why does he combine the act of homer forgetting any bible verse ("d'oh") with him picking up the rock in the same panel? it looks like he accidentally picked up a rock. that is an illogical act. i would like this comic if it were just that panel though, cuz absurdity is way funnier than this poo stain.

also, g-swoop sounds like 50 cent's tv remake of f-troop.

Victor: i don't know, the "aggro" part of this aggro-blog has always been
pretty "wink wink." i think the ultimate point of
wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com is that nothing matters at all.  so
yeah i "hate" wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com but i also "love"
wehatethiswebcomic.blogspot.com.

Bob: i both love and hate that you didn't make that third link a rickroll.

Victor: i stay in basic html, my shit is wack.

Owen: what's a rickroll?

Victor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling

Owen: why is this wikipedia page go straight to a youtube video?

Owen: fuck i can't find it on google but i know exactly what it is.

Owen: oops wrong thread.

Owen: oh shit i just figured out what a rickroll is that shit it hilarious.  i think i did that or thought about doing once but i never knew it was a fucking meme.

Bob: it was such a popular meme that it actually made the word 'meme' a meme

Owen: really?
why don't i know anything


Victor: U SUCK OWEN

Victor: naw, you're alright.

Owen: it's weird that before gmail everyone had pretty different relationships to the internet, and now because of gchat and gmail threads like this one we all have relatively similar relationships to the internet, or like a lot of common ground, like a collective relationship to the internet which has become a catchall of everyone individual internet use.

Victor: according to this site http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm only 25.5% of the world has the internet?

Owen: can't trick me man, google preview.

Bob: isn't it weird how before google preview everyone had this blind faith for the internet but now they just know right out what's going to happen to them, like some sort of internet premonition, like a little rectangular shadow of the future lurking below their thoughts, just waiting to get clicked on. that shit is weird (for 25.5% of the world)

this comic is usually actually pretty good but this one is hella gay

Victor: wow, what a stinker. this makes me not even like comics in general.

this is kinda funny

Bob: im reddy when yall fags are

Owen: so i think the idea is we're just going to talk about this stuff in gmail convo's and then i'll put it all in a blog post.  so like that is going to be part of the blog post.  this is meta blogging.  this web comic sux!  you know what i mean!?

Owen: usually using a walrus in a web comic would come off as a lame gimmick to me, similar to using the word "cheese" as a punch line, which we've already gotten some shit over (ps the commenters on this blog: who are these people?).  i think ambien is just funny by itself basically.

Victor: yeah ambien is funny.  that walrus is cute.  this shit is ok.  didn't
we talk about tootpaste for dinner like twice already?  also, wasn't
our first "meta blog" going to be the gmail thread where we talk about
taking a wehatethiswebcomic field trip to see the achewood dude and
the other dude talking about being huge losers to a bunch of college
students somewhere with our newest blogger bob weisz?  bob weisz is
kind of like the cat or dog or baby that an old couple tries to
revitalize their relationship with.  oh also, new style note, i'm not
going to bother capitalizing anymore.  also yeah, the people that
comment on this blog tend to be insanely stupid retarded idiots.
especially anyone who gives a fuck about that wack piece of shit
anders loves maria. what are you doing with your lives? do you work at
google or something? why does anyone bother to have any serious
emotional responses to webcomics besides blind rage?

Bob: i like this comic actually, is that allowed? it does remind me of being on ambien. i def wrote some okay comics about being on ambien while on ambien. the walrus and the xg's and the keys are all non sequiturs but the joke is that everything goes non sequitous when y'on ambien, i find. i actually can't remember, but that is also the point i guess. im definitely that catdogbaby, especially when i end up costing way more money and time and energy than the couple ever wanted to put into the relationship and they end up even more miserable and potentially suicidal than before they tried to start loving each other again. i like this new metablogging, but its weird how it went from a kind of organic, internet-on-the-couch type conversation between you two to basically an Expository Speaking session between three stoned high schoolers. also is this metablogging? it seems more like protoblogging. like writing letters and shit. this blog is now like writing letters.

Owen: i read about 60% of that paragraph, but i agree with everything.  so how do we decide when we've written a blog post?

Victor: i'm about ready to "let this puppy out" but just a few things: 1.
yeah, liking a web comic is totally allowed.  2. catdogbaby. 3.
"Expository Speaking session between three stoned high schoolers" is a
great "mild burn" and provides a needed dose of "self-criticism" that
will really freshen things up in the bedroom with me and owen. 4.
"protoblogging" is accurate yeah but "metablogging" i think is also
accurate cause we're blogging about blogging. 5. who will actually
read this? 6. will any of this matter when we're all dead?

Bob: 2 and 5 will matter

WE'RE BACK

yo we're back

Bob:

we hate this web comic road trip? 

Owen: perry bible fellowship dude looks way cooler than achewood dude, which isn't a surprise.  maybe we could blog about that.  although we haven't blogged in about 8 months.  bob, do you want to take over our blog?  or we could three way it?

Bob: but thats neither here nor there, cuz we're talking about jokes and comics, and yeah pbf dude looks way cooler but reading achewood (more specifically the achewood character blogs) makes me understand a lot about achewood dude's personality and attitude towards life and it really is rather wise and hilarious though ultimately simple, though i guess thats what the strip is about, the complexities of simplicity, which is pretty dope.

in any case yeah i could three way or some shit, i dont have a single feeler or feed out for webcomics, but i be down to look at some more internet bullshit more often. i will also promise to lose steam on the blog in about 3-8 months.

Victor: pause on "or we could three way it" but yeah let's blog this out. maybe we do it in a gmail thread and then "transcribe" it as a blog entry?  maybe this is our first entry as a three-person-bob-weisz-

inclusive-gmail-thread blog? and yeah achewood dude looks like a grade a squeezer.

Victor: YOU"RE IN.  jordan (CAT)fish (OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!) was telling me catfish is the best shit he's seen in a minute.  also, i personally think achewood is more about the complexities of being WACK. (

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!!)

Owen: google wave?

also, i thought perry bible fellowship was a book at terrence's house.  it's a web comic???!!!??!?!?!

also, i have terrible web comics in my gmail for days.

also, WE HATE THIS WEB COMIC is 4 life.

ps. i will not be on the internet for the next 1 to 2 hours.

Bob: 5-MINNIT SHITTY COMIC RUNDOWN:

http://www.kawaiinot.com/?p=226
http://www.1977thecomic.com/2008/10/24/folgers-in-your-cup/
http://www.stripteasecomic.com/d/20001016.html
http://www.sideburnsandcigarettes.com/comic3.htm
http://morningsquirtz.com/just_say_hell_no.html

i just searched google for webcomic and went to page 25 and started clicking around. this seems to be a pretty good method.

Victor: GOOGLE WAVE yeah let's get on those old web comics you sent me owen. i blame myself for what will later be known as "the dark ages of we hate this webcomic dot blogspot dot com"

WE HATE THIS WEBCOMIC IS LIFE

Owen: yo i started a googwave and added bob to it but victor isn't on google wave.  bob how do i invite him?  also, your gmail pic is the same as my facebook pic.

 Victor: FUCK GOOGLE WAVE

Owen: yeah fuck this.  i'm doing this first comic: http://www.kawaiinot.com/images/kawaiinot_strip226.gif
it's dumb

Owen: so i guess this is the first blog post of the next generation WHTWC?

Victor: yes. my bad, i responded to this gmail thread after i responded to
that other gmail thread (cum whtwc blog post) saying: "wasn't our
first 'meta blog' going to be the gmail thread where we talk about
taking a wehatethiswebcomic field trip to see the achewood dude and
the other dude talking about being huge losers to a bunch of college
students somewhere with our newest blogger bob weisz?" but i like the
anachronistic FLAVA that brings to this VERY IMPORTANT BLOG. (VIB.)

Bob: so wait, are we going on this field trip or not?

i heard das racist wasnt gunna play in boston because apparently they actually have racists there