Some very happy news! and comics 21 through 30

Jeff Jacks was recently married! To him, I offer my sincerest congratulations, and wish him only the greatest happiness as a husband.

But not as a webcomic artist. Getting hitched won't change the fact that his webcomic is an abomination against man and God. So let's continue down the line discussing the next ten strips:


#21: The Death Penalty

This particular strip has even less reason to exist than most of the previous strips. It seems that Pintsize can't just pull some random stunt without Marten laboriously explaining it, and then pulling the little robot's head off and cleaning him out with paper towels. Furthermore, this strip features the same damn joke told three times with almost no variation at all. Sort of a QC condensed, I guess.


#22: The Most Dangerous Toast

The next morning, Marten woke up to find his hands had been glued to his head. I guess we're supposed to assume that there's a knock on the door, based on the context in the second panel, but there's really nothing to indicate that.

And now, for the first time, we finally get a bit of plot progression. Enjoy it. Savor it. It's going to be a very long time before we see any more. In this comic we have a startling development: Faye is going to move in with Marten! In his newsbox, Jacks claims that QC will not devolve into some lame anime ripoff, but it's shaping up more and more like a bad Tenchi Muyo knockoff. Or maybe Love Hina, since Tenchi wasn't a complete loser. Great job with namedropping Piro, there, by the way. It strikes me as ironic, since QC is the only comic I've seen that moves slower than Megatokyo.

Of course, the thing that bothers me the most about this strip is the fact that Faye is a terrible unfeeling monster. Not only did her apartment building burn down, presumably along with the majority of her material possessions, but it is also entirely her fault. As only one wall was left standing, she's not the only person who's out of a home now either. And how does she react to this? Is she filled with deep remorse? Is she recovering from shell shock? No, just another day in Faye-town. In fact, as the comic unfolds, this terrible accident is reduced to a running gag. It's disturbing that she can be so flippant about this sort of thing. At least Marten had the decency to widen his eyes a bit at the news.


#23: Instant Hysterics

In this strip, Faye calls up her mother to tell her she's living with a boy, an act of purely malicious intent. Never mind that Faye's apartment just burned down, but she is okay, and maybe her mother might be interested in knowing about it. I guess we are supposed to assume that the bag Marten has in the first panel contains all of Faye's remaining possessions, and that she had it with her before.

Jeff notes in his newsbox that this comic took a REALLY LONG GODDAMNED TIME to draw, as it apparently features the best art he has produced yet. I, personally, see no marked difference. He also lets us know that there is a forum where we can go to rain pictures of giraffes upon him, and also indicates that he would likely explode if namedropped John Allison ever drew a guest strip for him. An empty promise, as Jeff later received said guest strip, and is still in one piece to draw this awful comic.


Guest Strip Extravanga: Knights of the Old Do It Your Fucking Self

I have no idea what an extravanga is, and neither does dictionary.com. Regardless, QC here sees its first guest strip, brought to you by Jeff's British friend James, who is from Britain and is therefore British. As the comic progresses, the guest strips become more and more entertaining, but this first one is a bit weak. Really, that's not surprising, as QC only has 23 canon strips, and cumulatively they feature almost no character growth or story at all. The artwork is much nicer to look at than the crap that Jeff has been drawing, though, and he's all too aware of it. If only someone would throw down a "writing" gauntlet of sorts.

James seems to have mistaken Questionable Content for a gaming strip. It's understandable, though, as it has all the earmarks of one. Flat and shallow human archetypes, no discernable plot, people standing around talking incessantly about things that nobody cares about at all. And in classic gamer comic style, James picks a game that was very popular and well received, and explains to you why you should think it is bad. That hits a little too close to home for my tastes.

Don't forget to vote at Buzzcomix! For anything other than QC!


#25: The Look Of Doom

I don't have a lot to say about this strip, except that it's bad. During this difficult time of transition and loss, Faye has decided to randomly get a new haircut. Changing the design of your characters is fine, but Jeff did a pretty careless job writing it in here.


#26: Dress Code

Marten and Faye are too big of losers to even fit in with their own ridiculous scenester cliques, so, out of crippling insecurity, they try to justify it to themselves by mocking the subculture that they belong to. Jacks seems to be pretty obsessed with these little subcultures, but we'll learn more about that as he starts piling on more and more female characters. Also, Marten is incapable of sitting down like a human being, and has to swing off his couch like a chimpanzee.

In his newsbox, we see more ass-kissing accompanied by broken links, and we hear about how Jeff labored extra hard to make that punchline is devoid of humor as he possibly could. He also talks about voting for his comic, which, at least for a while, was something that he was quite obsessed with.


#27: No Love For The Emo

This comic combines the two worst aspects of QC (so far), talking about music, and making fun of people for being in the wrong subculture. I'd just like to go on record as saying that the only name that I recognize from this strip is Winona Ryder. As such, the adorable banter of this strip is completely lost on me (and probably most other people who have read this strip) but that's okay, because I'm pretty sure that it wasn't funny in the first place.

After trying to cover his own ass and then immediately devaluing said attempts, Jacks displays once again his unusual fixation on the British. I read a little bit of the comic he's plugging here. It's better than Questionable Content, so you should go read it instead. Or maybe a book.


#28: Drama!

Have you already forgotten who Blonde Barista is? Jeff seems to think you have, so he's linked us from his newsbox to both of the previous strips in which she was introduced. He also discusses how embarrassed he is by the artwork in those strips, almost as if he thinks he's made even a modicum of improvement since then. He also tosses around words like "storyline" and "plot" as if he had a clue what they mean.

I think this strip would be a great place to introduce you to a concept that I call pseudo-conflict. It's an idea that Jeff Jacks pioneered as a storytelling dynamic, and it is a mechanic that he will use time and time again, as the comic fails to progress.

Pseudo-conflict is when sets up the potential for conflict in his story, and then fails to develop it at all. The problems are resolved in the most mundane and boring manner possible, assuming they don't just float away without being resolved at all. This and the following strip make a fine example. When Blonde Barista finds out that Faye is living with the man that she has been pining for, it could act as a lead in for a great plot development. So what will happen now? Why not click that next button to find out!

As an aside, I like to pretend that Blonde Barista really did shit herself in that last panel.


#29: Only Sort Of Relieved

Nothing happens! Faye simply explains the situation calmly and rationally, and Blonde Barista is completely understanding. No fighting or name-calling or anything of the sort, in fact, nothing even remotely engaging. I hope this example has given you a good understanding of how pseudo-conflict works, as I will likely be using the term quite a bit from here on. Since conflict is a pivotal element in storytelling, this would make Jeff Jacks a pseudo-storyteller.

He does write in his blog about conflict, though. Apparently, he doesn't want to depict girls fighting because girls fight with no honor, unlike men. Somehow, this manages to segue into a PSA about how you should never go out drinking without friends. I suspect this newsbox post may have actually been the result of friendless drinking.

A few more things worth noting here: webcomic conventions indicate that Blonde Barista is sighing in a foreign language. Her boobs or horribly lopsided, one of them retreating downward and back behind her arm, though she has trouble deciding which one. Finally, this comic is an important reminder that MARTEN AND FAYE ARE JUST FRIENDS AND ARE NOT DATING AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS JUST A JUST-FRIENDS RELATIONSHIP. Seriously, how could you readers have already forgotten that?


#30: Sudden Realizations

Allow me to divulge a bit of personal information. While I may come across as suave and debonair on the internet, speaking with me face-to-face is another story. My social skills are a bit lacking, it seems, and some people even find me to be somewhat creepy. This puts me in a position where I am particularly apt at explaining what is wrong with this particular comic.

Blonde Barista decides to accost Marten and bare her soul to him in the creepiest way imaginable. First she explains her erstwhile obsession with him, but then she feels compelled to tell him about how she proceeded to psychoanalyze herself, and talk herself out of dating him because she had already idealized him too much after knowing him for only a matter of days. Does she even know his name at this point? And then she thanks him, putting the blame of her newfound nirvana solely on his shoulders. Blonde Barista's malformed word balloons are filled with so much embarrassing exposition here that Jeff barely has any room left for his shitty artwork.

How do you react to something like that? Was she really expecting Marten to say, "Oh, you're very welcome," and then to ride off into the sunset on his white horse? I think it might be typical for a man to be simultaneously creeped out by her spookiness and also disappointed that someone has lost interest in him, along with a bit of being unsettled as she less-than-casually gropes his shoulder. Not Marten, though, this poor moron has no idea what just happened, and he has to have Faye explain it to him. Faye looks pretty smug about it all, too.

And in his little newbox, Jacks discusses how hard it is for him to write this shit.