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More from *kevinbolk

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March 23, 2011
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:iconkevinbolk:
This was the art for one of the slides for my "10 Things I Hate About Webcomics" panel I put together for Zenkaicon 2011. The idea behind the whole thing was to poke fun at common webcomics tropes, cliches, and/or bad habits and to help new creators recognize them and then either avoid them or exploit them (because anything, even tropes, done well can still make for good entertainment). This stuff can be applied to a lot of other media as well and I think most creators (myself included) have been guilty of them at one point or another.

This was actually the second part of the "Webcomic As Soapbox" slide. The first part covered the straight-up rant that features the author's avatar breaking the fourth wall to express his opinions directly at the reader for panels upon panels (which I have done myself so I just used one of my older comics as an example). This one is the slightly less obvious "Straw Man Argument". You will see it quite often in political cartoons and in auto-bio comics.

I really do my best to avoid these like the plague. It would be like beating a one-eyed dog at chess. It's way too easy and it kinda makes me look like a jerkass (especially in the eyes of people who don't already agree with me).

Not that webcomics can't or shouldn't express a point of view. I'd just like to see it done with a little more finesse.

::EDIT::- The purpose here is not to take stabs at fellow artists, which is why I was reluctant to post these outside the context of the panel in the first place. ~_~ Any direct resemblance to any particular work is completely and honestly unintentional.
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:iconherokiller12344:
~Herokiller12344 Apr 8, 2013
Exactly, the opponent is portrayed as ugly, stupid and one dimensional, unable to comprehend being wrong, while the Author Avatar is always made to look somewhat attractive and automatically right.

Straw men are posion.
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:icontehmatrix:
~tehMatrix Mar 5, 2013
Why would apologize to fellow artists? If anything, they're the ones who should be embarrassed for making comics that do this. Deviantart is plagued by things like this everywhere thanks to them.
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:iconl-l-7:
~l-l-7 Feb 28, 2013
this is like every Doonesbury comic ever.
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:iconkatelyn12345678:
Mood: Joy ~katelyn12345678 Dec 22, 2012
Wow the girl is very fat . Lets not talk about that lets talk about your comic your comic is like world winds famous comics congrats you are now famous of the comic and the fat girl congrats famous guy or girl c:
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:iconaerodeth:
~Aerodeth Nov 4, 2012
Extremely late witty comment that the author will never take a glance and will end at the very back of the comment chain and become unaccessible to see due to DA's glitchy comment sorter.
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:iconwindthin:
*Windthin Oct 2, 2012  Professional General Artist
Seen this one all too many times, to the point where even if I agree with the author it's kind of grating.
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:iconevatehgrape:
~EvaTehGrape Sep 27, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
Too true. I mean, if you're going to go to all of the trouble of making art to counter a point, at least make it look like it's a point worthy of your attention.
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:iconmajicfrog:
~majicfrog Sep 27, 2012
So, so true. Unfortunately. I can think of a few comic "artists" who pretty much exclusively follow this formula, that's for sure...
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:iconls-jebus:
Mood: Love ~LS-Jebus Sep 27, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
It is a really terrible kind of comic because it purposefully misrepresents opposing ideologies and attempts to associate that position with a lack of evidence or reason, while patting oneself on the back. I see this formula a lot when it comes to politics and religion.

For example,

Atheist: "religis peple r stoopid cuz dey beleve in dum shit with no evdadance"
Author says many scientists are religious, points out famous ones
Atheist rages because he apparently has a mental disorder
Author stays calm and rolls eyes

Far too many of those.
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