Exiern: A Slug Penny Vs. Something Questionable pt1
That’s right we have changed the format here at Exiern. We believe that this brand new and completely revolutionary new format is going to change the webcomic medium. Truely there has been nothing like the new Exiern on the web. Don’t bother looking for something similar it’s completely brand new. We mean it. Move your mouse away from that google button. Your just wasting your time.
A comic about 20 somethings hanging out in a coffee shop making ironic jokes! Why that’s something that has never been done on the web, television, radio, print or any other media you can think of. And if you should find something that looks like this by some freak chance that is only because those other people are copying us. You should write them a stern letter criticizing their lack of creativity.
On a non-sarcastic note the great artwork for this comic was done by Ivan Cortez
SNORT SNIRGLE SNARF = heh! ,,,,, 😉 🙂 {*v*} 😛 😀
Good day to start this, April 1st.
Can’t really make out what is written on the pink off the shoulder top.
“Retweet me and I’ll follow you” is what it looks like it says.
Looks like “Retweet me and I’ll follow you”, Riniko.
This IS a joke, right? Please, gods, let this be a joke.
It’s a joke
Well, I may be the only person in the universe other than the writer who hates (to the point of refusing to ever watch) Seinfeld, but from there, Drowemos’s analogy flies off the rails. I happen to have read, if not currently follow, all of the strips he’s referencing. Sluggy Freelance != Seinfeld because the cast spends very little time at home, and they have the whole weird-science-and-sorcery thing going on. Penny & Aggie != Seinfeld, because Penny & Aggie == Mean Girls/Cruel Intentions/etc., which is a whole separate criticism. Something Positive != Seinfeld because SP is a different sort of examination of how humans are ridiculously cruel to each other, ironicly titled, in spades, but that’s a more meta irony. Questionable Content….well, okay, that is about a core quartet hanging around in a coffeeshop or their apartment making ironic jokes, but the characters are interesting and the drama is compelling, even if I have no idea who the indie-hipster bands they reference are. And frankly, think about the pressure Jeph has to come up with a punchline for every single strip, even on the days he’s “got nothin” himself. Death is easy, comedy is hard. Frankly, if one wants to consider everything that’s wrong with modern TV comedy, one should look more at Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Sascha Baron Cohen rather than Seinfeld — I’d rather watch a Seinfeld marathon than any of that list; Seinfeld was at least intelligently written. Josh Lesnick, artist of “Girly”, really cheeses me off when he starts publicly dumping on other artists, just because they’re different from his art sensibilities (and, not to put too fine a point upon it, more successful in the hardscrabble world of webcomic commerce) — don’t you fscking start on that sh*t as well, Drowmos. Because, intriguing as the mature fantasy stories you write and gorgeous as the art you hire is, Drowemos (as opposed to SF, P&A, SP, and QC who DIY everything), it ain’t worth picking sides in real-world creative differences. You WILL lose that battle. Maybe you don’t care if you lose me as a viewer (I’m unemployed and unable to donate the support you admittedly deserve), you must have hundreds of others, but it’s like a political campaign — once you go negative, everything that follows is just that slightly bit tainted. Taint is an interesting intellectual exercise, much of Exiern examines that, but not fun to bear in real life. Keep the campaign clean, and succeed (as I hope you will) or fail on your own merits, not by snarking and cheap-shotting others.
I knew that title was going to get me into to trouble. I am not trying to take a swipe at Sluggy Freelance or of the comic I may have alluded to. More I am taking a swipe at the new comics out their that try to imitate these veterans. The people who mistake form for substance and think if they make a comic that looks like Penny Arcade they will be rich and famous too. The joke in this comic is that just because you put character in a trendy setting that doesn’t make you trendy. That if you don’t find you own path you end up just being a poor imitation.
I have no problem with any of the comic creators in the title… Well I do have a problem with Kurtz but that is due to the contents of his black black soul not the contents of his comic. I like the comics I mention and respect them in that they are able to accomplish something that I could never do.
Sorry, Drowemos, I had thought that you were calling said veterans derivative because of their similarities to Seinfeld, et.al., in some form of artistic jealousy. I’m happy to see I was wrong! Jokes do go awry, witness the faux feud a year or three ago that went on between Jeph (QC) and…was it Sam Logan?…anyway, what I remember is that R.K. Milholland stepped in as a voice of calm and reason — and anybody who knows Randy knows that if *he’s* the voice of sense and reason, something is VERY wrong 😉 Having never traded messages with Drowemos before this, I’m happy to tell you all he *does* care about his readers. Witness his prompt (and calm!) response to me tearing into him up one side and down the other 😉 Still a fan! -G.
KUDOS Drowemos, to realize someone has simply misunderstood your humor/sarcasm and carefully and intelligently explain it. KUDOS Giraud for checking that and indicating your conversion.
Although, if a comic whose features are boobs and violence and boobs and evil mages and boobs and dragons, (and did I mention, boobs?) draws a crowd like this, I’m obviously in some kind of warped universe!
(Well, you know, I mean a *more* warped universe…)
Lets see if anyone knows where the following is from: ” I’ll follow you if you follow me.”
I suppose the advantage of a fantasy setting is that the latest trends are whatever you write them to be.
“So did you hear in the news the peasents are builing hovels out of dried cow and horse dung?”
“Kinda brings new meaning to detouring around construction!”
(Rimshot)