On referential humor

What I hate most about Internet humor, after ‘random’ punchlines and speeches posing as jokes, is so-called ‘referential humor.’ I use the term not to refer to parodies and wink-nods, which can work in skilled hands, but to the kind of joke where the punchline consists wholly of the reference. These jokes are easily distinguished by a total lack of coherence to a reader unfamiliar with the referenced work, and I can think of few lazier things a writer can do. No thought is put in, no value added, only the hope that readers will see something they recognize and grin dumbly in a twisted pseudo-Pavlovian response. The only thing that infuriates me more than this practice is when it works.

Which is why I was unpleasantly surprised to see that this Dudley’s Dungeon strip had any positive votes at all. The XKCD strip referenced here (referencing another webcomic is a new low, but that’s a whole nother post) draws its humor from an absurd situation. Like most jokes, it’s funny because it presents something unexpected–both the bobcat in the package and the recipient’s understated response. But for the same reason, referencing it utterly destroys its appeal. A reference inherently involves recognition, something wholly contrary to the surprise upon which good absurdist humor relies. Take away the surprise, and you take away what made the joke entertaining in the first place.

Put another way, have you ever had a friend who liked to repeat a catchphrase he heard on TV? Did you appreciate it? Didn’t think so.

Writers, you have more important things to do than remind yourself that your readers like the same things you do. (If they didn’t, they probably wouldn’t bother with your work.) Readers, quit eating this shit up. The Internet is too big a place for you to settle for people who can’t come up with their own jokes. In conclusion, to rather hypocritically quote a Nameless Fairy, “Good comics make memes. Bad comics repeat them.”

A Massive Thumbsore

Imagine this Sam and Fuzzy strip, only with the word “webcomic” instead of “sitcom.”

Sore Thumbs, written by Chris Crosby and drawn by Owen Gieni, used to bill itself in ads as “Political Gaming Manga.” More recently, the wording changed to “Political Gaming Manga-style Comics.” I assume nowadays it’s “Political-Style Gaming-Style Ersatz-Manga Comic-Style Scribbles,” because Sore Thumbs is hardly political, barely about gaming, and simply not entertaining.

This still isn't funny in context

To Sore Thumbs’s credit, it manages to avoid the suffocating preachiness that plagues pretty much every political cartoon ever. However, it does so by being suffocatingly stupid instead. Rather than a satire of a particular position, the comic reads like a satire of political cartoons themselves. Crosby has no original insights to impart, no important new issues to highlight, only the most excruciatingly one-dimensional of archetypes. Between protagonist Cecania, who looks like the villain of a children’s book by Ann Coulter, and her brother Fairbanks, who resembles a six-year-old’s description of Stephen Colbert’s TV persona, the comic’s politics are like if you took a child raised by wolves and educated him on nothing but blogs and talk radio. Sore Thumbs has frequently been accused of liberal bias, but in truth its only affiliation is retarded.

As with Least I Could Do, lampshading your own flaws does not excuse them

Crosby addresses gaming much as he does politics, that is free of insight–or even indication that he has played the game in question. When the comic is not regurgitating Kotaku news, it rides on nostalgia for an era during which its likely target audience (judging by Cecania’s appearance) was not even born. Even the likes of Ctrl+Alt+Del and Dueling Analogs at least comment on the games themselves, and it’s never a good sign when you can be unfavorably compared to CAD.

None of this, however, touches on the fundamental problem with Sore Thumbs. Even without the clumsy, facile attempts at political and gaming humor, the comic would not be entertaining for one important (and all too prevalent) reason: overexplaining its jokes. Sore Thumbs attempts to duplicate the whimsical, manic energy of artists like Josh Lesnick, but fails spectacularly, its vitality drowned in a sea of words. Though not quite a Sluggy Freelance-level offender, Sore Thumbs finds itself at times reducing font sizes to fit speech bubbles. And while wordy does not always equal unfunny, it’s hard to smile with Crosby’s hissed whispers of “This is the part where you laugh” resounding in your head.

'It also looks amazing - Owen Gieni's drawing talents perfectly mimic the Japanese 'manga' style.' - Roland Hulme

But say you read Sore Thumbs for the art. My cursory research indicates this is the case for quite a few people, and it perplexes me, because while the art isn’t necessarily bad, one could do so much better. Gieni’s harsh, angular lines, empty eyes and lack of volume are more reminiscent of dollar-store “How To Draw Manga” books than professionally produced manga. And whether or not you consider it fair to compare him to the pros, the fact remains that Gieni’s art has improved little throughout the more than four years of the comic’s run. In some respects, like its blurred, formless backgrounds, it has even gotten worse. Gieni is no Chris-chan, but he is no Oh!Great either. He’s not even a Yuichi Hasegawa.

Sore Thumbs seeks the perfect storm of modern counterculture, a blend of edgy political irreverence, retro nerd cred and that manga stuff all the kids love these days. But it fails to consider that modern counterculture is invariably mediocre pap that only a frumpy teenager overfed on corn syrup and My Chemical Romance could love. And so it goes with Sore Thumbs; you get nothing from it that you cannot get from DeviantART or the Debate Section of a message board about backyard wrestling. Sore Thumbs is admittedly far from the most vile thing I have reviewed on this blog, but that’s no reason to read it.