Welcome to another addition of Bad Fan where I publicly admit how horrible I am at paying attention.
Todays Bad Fan is about Dinosaur Comics. Your saying to me now “Scott you don’t read Dinosaur comics?” and I then say “no I usually avoid clip art comic.” You then beat me with a stick I point to a few really really bad clip art strips that have ruined me. We then both feel bad and go out and drink beer.
Let’s just skip to the beer part.
So today I noticed that we have a new ad in Project Wonderful. You guessed it, it’s Dinosaur Comics. I figure I will make an effort to read any comic advertised on the site. I’m here to tell you that Ryan North may have me hooked with the first strip I read.
http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=945
I so very VERY much want to read a alternate universe story where no matter what Superman does EVERYONE DIES. I don’t care if at the end you make him wake up from a bad dream and all this time it was Luthor messing with him.
Ok, back to the why I don’t like clip art comics / why I like this one.
- I’m an art whore. I will keep reading bad books just to look at the way an artist does backgrounds. A story has to be very bad before I give up on an artist I like. This is also why I don’t read some book. If everyone looks the same why should I care. This is that part that bothers me most about clip art comics. Yes having a dinosaur say these lines is funnier then having a Mario Bros Sprite say them but it’s the same joke.
- It takes longer for me to become a fan of writers. I’ll go years reading a book before I discover who writes it (that’s why I’m a bad fan). Ryan seems to have a good handle on writing but it took an out of ordinary event to get me reading. Normally that event is the art. Ryan if you read this don’t feel bad the same thing happened with the book Stranger in a Strange Land had it been cheaper to buy batteries then it was to buy a paperback book in that airport I would never have read anything by Robert A. Heinlein.
- I still don’t like clip art comics very much. To often their the tool of those of us (myself included) that want to take shortcuts on a creative process. Often that leads to not only repetitious art but repetitious stories and humor. I haven’t made my way through the full archive. Trust me I probably won’t get the chance but it seems to me that Ryan has been keeping the strips fresh.
So there in a Nutshell is why I’m a bad fan. I recommend you check out Dinosaur Comics. No I won’t be going out of my way to read others like it unless some extraordinary event brings one to my attention.
(So is this where I would put I give it 30 stars out of 30 or would that just sound stupid? Really like I could actually give out a star. Do you know hot those things are?)
Scott (The Bad Fan)
I’m sorry I just can’t get into these clip art comics. They’re not comics, but writings. Now it might be good writing but it’s not a good comic(ing). The writing you pointed to about superman was excellent and had an important point. But forget the art. I mean really.
Let me write a little story about how I got in to manga… Now, I can’t really read Japanese too well. I can get the jist but that’s about it. I started collectiong manga well before you could get translations for your favorite story. However with a good comic you don’t NEED the writing! It’s true, you can enjoy a comic without a single talk bubble! Don’t believe me? Check out Sergio Aragones’ “Buzz and Bell”, Al Jeffy used to do it in the corners of Mad magazine, etc etc.
Heck, it doesn’t even have to be good art! But it does have to be sequential. It’s like the cartoonist is being a writer but using some non-phonetic language!
The manga I collected where very good at this! Unlike some Marvel comic’s with word bubbles that take up half the page, manga would show the story! The art contributed to the story. I didn’t need to read anything!
So that’s what I just can’t handle about clip art “comics.” As you say, the writer is taking a shortcut to creativity, I’m personaly slighted and thus can’t bring myself to read them. Even as good as the content can be.
Left by Dragonaur on February 28th, 2007