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I am an expert on terrible webcomics.
About half our ads are for webcomics so abysmal, they make Minimum Security look like Calvin and Hobbes. I always browse through our Project Wonderful advertisers’ sites to see if I find any gems, which are exceptionally rare (see also: Grade D but Edible, Buttersafe). I’ve only found two webcomics I’ve really enjoyed among dozens that have bought our advertising. That says a lot about how many people simply do not belong in that business. Some of these unremarkable strips are solidly “pretty good”, but their potential is wasted by either a bad partnership or a lack of a badly-needed partnership; some are just in all ways conventional, been-done, and uninteresting. There is nothing memorable to distinguish 97% of all webcomics. Trust me: StudKickass is different. StudKickass is one of the most memorable strips I’ve ever seen… but I do not wish this experience even on my worst enemies.
Judging by how much more money most of my advertisers are making off their sites than I am, my theory is that every webcomic creator apparently thinks to themselves, “I shall advertise on a site even worse than mine.” That is how the okay or passable webcomics wind up here. But StudKickass couldn’t find any websites worse than his own, so couldn’t do that. I have only two reasons not to block his ads: firstly, they are hilarious in all the wrong ways, and secondly, he’s paying me what appears to be all of his ad revenue for me to make fun of him, and he apparently doesn’t even know it.
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I regret that I must taint the pages of my own website with the name of StudKickass. Even just speaking his name gives him more power. It saddens me that my attempts to degrade him have actually gotten him more money–anyone who goes there to laugh at him will drive up his ad revenue to a whopping four cents a day. But I cannot mock him thoroughly without actually showing you the horrible evils he has brought into the world. And so I have a moral conundrum. The terrorists have won.
Speaking of “the name of StudKickass”, what the hell does the name mean? How is it in any way relevant? He’s not a stud. He does not kick ass. In fact, he’s portrayed as a loser, but not even in a funny way.
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This very unconventional, intriguing, new, and not-at-all-hackneyed character (^^^lie) is offset by Drew. Drew is distinguished by having what could be passed as a real name and by being an even bigger loser than StudKickass. Both characters are one-dimensional, on the same, uninteresting dimension. Their interactions are beyond boring, beyond dull, and likely to push weak readers into a persistent vegetative state. Add to that the fact that Drew didn’t even exist for the first few months, and wow. You just have a guy talking to his annoying fucking cat.
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And this cat is identical to Garfield, except that he is even more easy to hate. The things that he does are usually supposed to be irreverent, taboo, or zany, but just come across as asinine. “Bubz”, a word that irritates me for reasons that should be obvious, may or may not be the name of this unfunny cat. I am making this guess judging by this comic:
Here, StudKickass drops trou and forces out a foul-smelling shit on the entire medium of comics. All that’s to it is a static image copy-pasted in three panels with stilted, contrived dialogue below it in a default font. What makes this comic such a botched abortion isn’t the failed delivery–it’s flawed from conception. The comic and its “punchline” make less sense than gnawing off your own testicles: nobody but StudKickass understands the appeal. And the cat is named nowhere else but here, so I sure hope the “writer” doesn’t expect his “fans” to get to know his “characters” too well.
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Lastly, we have his girlfriend, who is literally no more than a prop, and never gets any lines. I would say she’s a plot device but that would imply that there is a plot. Her treatment in the comic is borderline-misogynistic, that of a domestic baby machine, reflecting a juvenile or undeveloped idea of what girls are like and confusion about whether or not they are real people. I don’t think she even has a name. There is quite plainly no reason whatsoever for her to be in the comic.
Which brings me to my next point: there is quite plainly no reason whatsoever for Drew to be in the comic, as he added nothing new, or Bubz to be in it, as he was regurgitated garbage, or StudKickass to be in it, since he is an uncompelling, uninteresting, and fundamentally boring protagonist. I am convinced that the comic exists for no reason other than to fill a perpetual, mercilessly unending stream of panels. No comedy or story holds it together. No characters compel it to be. Nothing happens. It can be directly, and disfavorably, compared to Garfield. Garfield. You know, the one with only jokes about Mondays, fatness, and Jon being a loser. Yes. That strip has more dimensions than StudKickass. Compared to StudKickass’s unidimensional world, Garfield is fucking String Theory.
I may never understand why, if you were ripping off and cheapening Garfield–a feat so difficult it had never before been achieved–you’d admit to it. He tried, with a resounding lack of success, to exploit his own uncreativity for a not-even-half-baked storyline.
Now that you’re at the bottom of the page, you have seen that this is a multi-page update. But before you run away screaming from the idea of a rant so long, I might remind you that this article is tagged as Photoshop too. Hm… I wonder why that might be…. Maybe, just maybe, it is worth reading through. This article is not half as long as it looks, trust me.
