There was a time in the past when I was unaware of the Internet culture besides lol and wtf and the other macros and such that now seem to drive my mentality. It was a time before I knew what was amazing on the Internet, at least in webcomic standards. I read things that now cause me large amounts of discomfort and they often lead to a plague of copycats that have created the current webcomic plane of desolation we currently live in. I will abstain from rating them because I don't keep up with them and for a few other reasons I hold to myself. These are Forsaken Webcomics of Koltreg's Past!
Dominic Deegan by Mookie
Honestly I used to go crazy over this comic and I loved everything about it and I'd get into discussions about storylines and then I just dropped it. I'd been reading it for about 3 years at the time, reverently and on a dial up network. Then I stumbled onto a forum where they were complaining about it and my magical optimist glasses were broken. I tried to deal with the overly animu art but couldn't anymore. I found the storyline to be a depressing pastiche of overused storylines with barely anything that made it stand out besides the fact that it had been on since close to the beginning of the webcomic boom. Looking at it currently it looks like they still haven't resolved storylines that were around when I quit reading, the art hasn't progressed since then and nothing is making me want to return.
8-bit Theatre by Brian Clevinger
Now I was honestly a huge 8-bit Theatre fan back a few months after I got into Dominic Deegan (followed by VG Cats). I read through the entire archive and kept with until about a year ago. I took off for vacation, came back, looked at all the text in the comics and then realized, in the time I am reading this overly wordy sprite comic, I could be reading at least 5 other comics. I am going to go out and blame the current flood of sprite comics on 8-bt. Every Sonic sprite comic, Fireball20xl, etc. 8-bit paved the way for it and while I will note that Clevinger did it the best and most likely still does as he is making ass loads of money off of it, I still think he can do much better now. His print comic (Atomic Robo) is proof. I might return someday when I am really bored but I would doubt it.
Ctrl-Alt-Delete by Tim Buckley
It started out generic and got worse. I think almost everybody who has stopped reading the comic would agree with this. I got into the comic back in 07 in Chemistry because I could half listen and still read the comic (or play KoL). I went home after first discovering it and read all the way through the archives. I kept up vigilantly. I even recommended it to other people for a while. Then I noticed the flaws with help from the Internet. The art not changing, the horrible jokes. I got out a while before the miscarriage but I don't think it matters. It's a generic comic not offering anything special right now and that is a shame. Especially since the guy is making a living off of it now and is living comfortably apparently.
The Wotch by Anne Onymous
Everybody makes big mistakes. all that came out of this that was positive was that I discovered Sins and El Goonish Shive. Why the comic still lives in mainly because it is a purely fetish cartoon functioning solely on the fact that horny people will take whatever they can get. Why did I get into it? I don't even remember. I don't want to. Enough said.
Those were the big 4 for me. They influenced me or at least showed me the breadth of webcomics and I thank them for it but I won't visit them anytime soon. Look them up if you want but remember, I left them all for a reason.
Posts
