Since I was writing my Webcomic Review articles/posts there are only some webcomics that I still read. I gave up on Least I Could Do and Looking for Group after a short time. I haven't been back to Ctrl+Alt+Del since I reviewed it. Even Erfworld and Jack, two of my favorites, have been neglected.
So I started wondering why I still read what I do. One part of it is time constraints, I've simply got more to do than I used to and I have to be more selective about what I read. The other reason is with some comics I just get tired of the story or formula. This is the reason why comics like Penny Arcade will continue to last, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are just creative enough to be consistent while unconstrained by a staple plot or universe.
Some comics just play themselves out. This is the case for everyone and it varies between each of us how much, and which, formulas we can tolerate. So the comics I still read? They either remain amusing or intriguing, contain characters I've come to genuinely care about, or are at a stage of artistic development or growth that is fascinating to read and speculate. Questionable Content continues to make its way into my life, I love the characters and I find Jeph Jacques interesting because I can see his growth happening right in front of me.
I confess I picked Questionable Content to review first because I wouldn't have to read the entire thing so soon after deciding to write again. Whenever I review comics I read the entire backlog before providing a review. It let's me follow plots, see artistic growth and choices over time, and it forces me to find aspects I do and don't like. I would deeply encourage anyone who hasn't read QC to start at the beginning, the story and art has gone through some amazing development.
At it's beginning, and I would say still at it's core, Questionable Content is about indie music, hipsters, and people on the fringes of mainstream society. It blends this with a strange degree of alternate reality, where Anthro PCs, humanoid computer companions, are a reality. There are other fleeting science fiction components to the comic, but it largely remains a self-contained comedy-drama about a small cast of characters with bohemian interests and lifestyles. In my everyday life I find hipster culture, in it's most arrogant form, incredibly irritating. In Questionable Content, even when Jacques goes deep on it I find the references funny and not irritating. Something about how Jacques has been able to keep his characters at the forefront of everything he does, regardless of setting or plot, really makes everything else complement them.
The comics earliest iteration focused on Marten, the main character, and his Anthro PC Pintsize adding the emotionally distressed Faye to their apartment. The earliest comics focus on the "will they or won't they" back and forth between Faye and Marten that eventually adds the second major location, Coffee of Doom. Coffee of Doom is a left of center coffee shop with a confrontational owner, Dora. Jacques never really strays far from either Marten's apartment or Coffee of Doom for longer than a dozen strips or so. I think this is to the overall benefit of the comic as one of the things Jacques does extremely well is give his characters room to breathe. He also slowly integrates new cast members into the comic that react and blend with the existing characters well precisely because you, the reader, understand the central players' thoughts and motivations.
As the comic progresses you can really see Jacques development as a writer and artist. His early art is not bad, but it hardly compares to what he is doing now. His storytelling is much improved since he began with a fairly simple love triangle and found his stride. There are a lot of missteps in the earlier comics, but what Jacques is adept at is shedding the dead weight as he goes along. Two characters, the flaky Raven and Marten's bro-ish best friend Steve, make appearances early and are written casually out of the story but for infrequent cameos. It works because they don't work, Jacques let's his characters evolve and be themselves and if they don't fit he fades them out. Similar things have arisen with character development. In some of the earliest comics there was an attempt to explain Faye's fear of affection with a very dark and dramatic plot that, for me, never really gelled.
This would be my primary complaint about the comic, that Jacques will experiment with different elements of the world he has built like the aforementioned science fiction elements and it is hit or miss. Hannelore, who herself is a fantastic character with crippling OCD and a wonderful personality, staggers through some bizarre science fiction plots involving her father. The newest characters, who have emerged from Marten's job at a university library, have expanded this element of the comic by bringing in more of the Anthro PC world and technology Jacques started with Pintsize. However, these various deviations from the most common plots and settings may only be unappealing to me.
This would be the main tipping point on whether you are going to enjoy Questionable Content or not. For the first chunk of the comic it is largely humorous and ridiculous, with lots of Pintsize as comic relief which I greatly enjoyed. It then shifts into a significant relationship plot and a heavier leaning on character development and drama, which was probably my favorite portion of the comic thus far. Recently we've been in the aftermath of that arc, adding new characters and expanding relationships and backgrounds for the fringe characters that haven't been given as much attention before. I still enjoy Questionable Content in its current stage, though part of me wonders is Jacques is spreading his universe too thin.
This gripe comes with a caveat though. Part of the reason I think Jacques has to go in this direction, looking at other characters in greater detail and expanding his cast, is because in the previously mentioned second major plot stretch of the comic where two main characters are dating he really focuses on the smaller cast very closely. I'm trying very hard to dance around spoilers here, but the progression of the relationships in that period of the comic's story and the eventual conclusion was some of the best, most emotionally real stuff I have seen in webcomics or any medium. For this reason I really recommend people check out Questionable Content.
Some quick additional comments: while I usually don't like guest comics, though I begrudgingly accept that they have to exist for artists to have a break, I really like Jacques Yelling Bird character. He is foul-mouthed and hilarious and just enough of a break from the feel of the main comic to make me smile every time. There are more characters in the comic I didn't directly address, but you can meet them as you go. I especially suggest you keep an eye out for the band Marten forms and sporadically practices with, it's one of those little tonal shifts Jacques does quite well that is sprinkled throughout the comic.
One final note, I check with artists to see if they are okay with me including images of their comics in my reviews and I've reached out to Jeph Jacques for his approval. In the meantime please visit www.questionablecontent.net and give QC a read, I'm confident just about everyone will find something to like.
EDIT: I'm putting the comic up since it's copyrighted on the image, if it's a problem for Jacques I'll take it down later when he writes me back.
So I started wondering why I still read what I do. One part of it is time constraints, I've simply got more to do than I used to and I have to be more selective about what I read. The other reason is with some comics I just get tired of the story or formula. This is the reason why comics like Penny Arcade will continue to last, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are just creative enough to be consistent while unconstrained by a staple plot or universe.
Some comics just play themselves out. This is the case for everyone and it varies between each of us how much, and which, formulas we can tolerate. So the comics I still read? They either remain amusing or intriguing, contain characters I've come to genuinely care about, or are at a stage of artistic development or growth that is fascinating to read and speculate. Questionable Content continues to make its way into my life, I love the characters and I find Jeph Jacques interesting because I can see his growth happening right in front of me.
I confess I picked Questionable Content to review first because I wouldn't have to read the entire thing so soon after deciding to write again. Whenever I review comics I read the entire backlog before providing a review. It let's me follow plots, see artistic growth and choices over time, and it forces me to find aspects I do and don't like. I would deeply encourage anyone who hasn't read QC to start at the beginning, the story and art has gone through some amazing development.
At it's beginning, and I would say still at it's core, Questionable Content is about indie music, hipsters, and people on the fringes of mainstream society. It blends this with a strange degree of alternate reality, where Anthro PCs, humanoid computer companions, are a reality. There are other fleeting science fiction components to the comic, but it largely remains a self-contained comedy-drama about a small cast of characters with bohemian interests and lifestyles. In my everyday life I find hipster culture, in it's most arrogant form, incredibly irritating. In Questionable Content, even when Jacques goes deep on it I find the references funny and not irritating. Something about how Jacques has been able to keep his characters at the forefront of everything he does, regardless of setting or plot, really makes everything else complement them.
The comics earliest iteration focused on Marten, the main character, and his Anthro PC Pintsize adding the emotionally distressed Faye to their apartment. The earliest comics focus on the "will they or won't they" back and forth between Faye and Marten that eventually adds the second major location, Coffee of Doom. Coffee of Doom is a left of center coffee shop with a confrontational owner, Dora. Jacques never really strays far from either Marten's apartment or Coffee of Doom for longer than a dozen strips or so. I think this is to the overall benefit of the comic as one of the things Jacques does extremely well is give his characters room to breathe. He also slowly integrates new cast members into the comic that react and blend with the existing characters well precisely because you, the reader, understand the central players' thoughts and motivations.
As the comic progresses you can really see Jacques development as a writer and artist. His early art is not bad, but it hardly compares to what he is doing now. His storytelling is much improved since he began with a fairly simple love triangle and found his stride. There are a lot of missteps in the earlier comics, but what Jacques is adept at is shedding the dead weight as he goes along. Two characters, the flaky Raven and Marten's bro-ish best friend Steve, make appearances early and are written casually out of the story but for infrequent cameos. It works because they don't work, Jacques let's his characters evolve and be themselves and if they don't fit he fades them out. Similar things have arisen with character development. In some of the earliest comics there was an attempt to explain Faye's fear of affection with a very dark and dramatic plot that, for me, never really gelled.
This would be my primary complaint about the comic, that Jacques will experiment with different elements of the world he has built like the aforementioned science fiction elements and it is hit or miss. Hannelore, who herself is a fantastic character with crippling OCD and a wonderful personality, staggers through some bizarre science fiction plots involving her father. The newest characters, who have emerged from Marten's job at a university library, have expanded this element of the comic by bringing in more of the Anthro PC world and technology Jacques started with Pintsize. However, these various deviations from the most common plots and settings may only be unappealing to me.
This would be the main tipping point on whether you are going to enjoy Questionable Content or not. For the first chunk of the comic it is largely humorous and ridiculous, with lots of Pintsize as comic relief which I greatly enjoyed. It then shifts into a significant relationship plot and a heavier leaning on character development and drama, which was probably my favorite portion of the comic thus far. Recently we've been in the aftermath of that arc, adding new characters and expanding relationships and backgrounds for the fringe characters that haven't been given as much attention before. I still enjoy Questionable Content in its current stage, though part of me wonders is Jacques is spreading his universe too thin.
This gripe comes with a caveat though. Part of the reason I think Jacques has to go in this direction, looking at other characters in greater detail and expanding his cast, is because in the previously mentioned second major plot stretch of the comic where two main characters are dating he really focuses on the smaller cast very closely. I'm trying very hard to dance around spoilers here, but the progression of the relationships in that period of the comic's story and the eventual conclusion was some of the best, most emotionally real stuff I have seen in webcomics or any medium. For this reason I really recommend people check out Questionable Content.
Some quick additional comments: while I usually don't like guest comics, though I begrudgingly accept that they have to exist for artists to have a break, I really like Jacques Yelling Bird character. He is foul-mouthed and hilarious and just enough of a break from the feel of the main comic to make me smile every time. There are more characters in the comic I didn't directly address, but you can meet them as you go. I especially suggest you keep an eye out for the band Marten forms and sporadically practices with, it's one of those little tonal shifts Jacques does quite well that is sprinkled throughout the comic.
One final note, I check with artists to see if they are okay with me including images of their comics in my reviews and I've reached out to Jeph Jacques for his approval. In the meantime please visit www.questionablecontent.net and give QC a read, I'm confident just about everyone will find something to like.
EDIT: I'm putting the comic up since it's copyrighted on the image, if it's a problem for Jacques I'll take it down later when he writes me back.
