Comic Book Resources

This may be the best one yet. Really funny! Totally don’t get the Jamal joke though, but I can live with that.

@T:
The Jamal joke is that he’s a character who only appears in panel but never says anything.

Also, is the “be less critical” line a dig at comics fans as a whole, or the people who would shit on the strip in the early days? Everything takes a few weeks to get rolling, and I think now you two have really hit the mark and are making consistently humorous strips. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Happy New Year, CSBG.

Bat porn joke, Yay!

I like it. I like it a lot. Great job, Sean and Brandon.

That marissa just needs a good lay.

That marissa just needs a good sex toy.

That marissa just needs a good sex toy.
…. with good lasting batteries.

That Josh just needs a good deep dickin’.

In regards to Marissa’s resolution to stop correcting people on the difference between comics and superhero comics….

NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great strip, as per use

This is slightly funnier than Two and a Half Men.
These going to get funnier in 2009 perhaps?

“This is slightly funnier than Two and a Half Men.
These going to get funnier in 2009 perhaps?”

Maybe two and a half funnier, or not.

Is that supposed to be an insult? Two and a Half Men is funny as hell! You should have used the US version of the Office or 30 Rock or Stephen Colbert for a better example.

The “teenage lesbian unicorns” line was hilarious.

Hilarious!

Have a nice new year’s eve, all of you folks!

Two and a Half Men is a pretty mediocre sitcom. Today’s strip I’ll rate as “alright.”

I dug that episode that switched CSI and 2 1/2 men writers.
That was fun to watch.

T., While I usually agree with you, it seems we have a different sense of humour. I Enjoy the Office, 30 Rock & Stephen Colbert, while I think this web comic, well, blows to be honest.
Two & a Half men, I can’t comment on, as I’ve never watched it.

I believe the “be less critical” lines are references to them criticizing the resolutions of the others.

The only thing I found funny was what Jamal wrote himself, but that was only after reading the comments to get the joke. There have been much better strips.

I dug that episode that switched CSI and 2 1/2 men writers.
That was fun to watch.

That was the *only* episode of 2 1/2 men that I liked, other than that the show is complete rubbish. Although their CSI-written episode was surprisingly good. As long as the Emmys continue to put 2 1/2 men & Charlie Sheen up for best “comedy” year-in, year-out, I can’t take those awards seriously.

Tonight on 2 1/2 Men: Alan whines about something, Jake is dumb, and Charlie gets drunk and tries sleeping with guest star and model/actress [insert name]. Meanwhile, Taylor Holland and Bertha are bitchy and Judith treats Alan like crap.

There, you’ve just seen every episode of the series ever written and can move on to shows with rounded characters and more than two different episode plots.

Tonight on 2 1/2 Men: Alan whines about something, Jake is dumb, and Charlie gets drunk and tries sleeping with guest star and model/actress [insert name]. Meanwhile, Taylor Holland and Bertha are bitchy and Judith treats Alan like crap.

There, you’ve just seen every episode of the series ever written and can move on to shows with rounded characters and more than two different episode plots.

Every sitcom boils down to repeating the same formula episode after episode. That’s not unique to Two and a Half Men. “This week on Seinfeld, Kramer has a new wacky scheme, Jerry is dating someone new with a minor quirk he blows out of proportion, and George and/or Elaine have a new selfish idea that will backfire and bite them in the ass. All plot threads will coalesce at the end in a farcical fashion and no one will be better off than when the episode started.”

It’s what Seavey calls a “storytelling engine.”

As long as the Emmys continue to put 2 1/2 men & Charlie Sheen up for best “comedy” year-in, year-out, I can’t take those awards seriously.

Yeah, but consider the competition. 100% of NBC’s sitcoms are inferior to 2 and a Half Men for example.

Many people arguing a point — even a stupid and risible one, i.e., the alleged high quality of 2 1/2 Men — will use evidence coupled with linking statements to turn that evidence into meaningful support for their claims.

Refreshingly, T. simply declares a personal opinion with which many reasonable people will vehemently disagree with the certainty that it will magically stand on its own as fact, or at least as compelling argument.

Thus such wondrous examples of nonthought as “DC books are all insipid, unlike Marvel’s,” made chgeerfully and without recourse to any example of insipidness at one company, nor any discussion of how t’other avoids the problem.

And now, the claim that one of the most formulaic shows on television, one whose endlessly repeated plotline is little more than a half-hour-long clothesline for some of the simplest entendres to ever aspire to doubleness, is inferior to some mass of shows at another network, neither named nor discussed nor their own copious awards nominations and wins remotely expounded upon, let alone refuted.

The only thing our friend T. convinces anyone of, I fear, is his own windbaggery, his own unreflecting sureness and self-righteousness.

(And yes, the above was deliberately pompous and overdone, a worse example of what I’m accusing T. of than anything T.’s ever done.)

Dude, how many sitcoms, even the most brilliant ones, aren’t an endlessly repeated plotline when you step back and look at objectively? Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock, Friends, Seinfeld, they’re all one or two repeated plots over and over again. Repeated plots only bothers people when it’s not a repeated plot that they particularly like. I just like it because it’s a great refresher from the current glut of whimpster glorification fodder we have to put up with in the media all the time. It’s basically a pretty good antidote to the Whedon/Kevin Smith/Apatow/Cera mindset you see in all shows and movies aimed at 18-34 year olds nowadays trying to push the propaganda that being a dorky nebbish, sensitive neurotic nice-guy beta male as the guy who always gets the girl and wins in the end. I feel that’s a bad message to sell to young guys.

Also, I don’t think all of DC’s books are insipid, just a vast majority of the in-continuity ones during the current Didio regime. Under Jennette Kahn I thought DC’s books were great. Even in the Didio era, as long as the books aren’t under heavy editorial interference by Didio, like the Vertigo line and All-Star Superman or new Frontier, the results are still decent. I’m obviously not alone as DC’s market share has been plummeting. Marvel has insipid books too by the way, but in comparison to Didio’s messes the overall line is in much better shape.

So…you hate those other sitcoms because they’re not macho enough?

I’d leave 30 Rock off the list, then: the only characters who succeed sexually or professionally on it are Alec Baldwin as obsessively alpha-male Jack Donaghy and Tracy Morgan as…Tracy Morgan Jordan. Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon, on the other hand, is meant to be a sad and pathetic loser undone by her own neuroses. It hardly fits the pattern you describe, so I’m curious to hear why that show doesn’t pass your muster.

I’d also be interested to get your take on what plotline the shows you list repeat with apalling frequency.

For that matter, I’m curious as to how Charlie Sheen Harper as a drunken womanizer or Jon Cryer as a whiny loser project a positive image for the young people. The latter especially, since he played “whimpster” Duckie per that site you link.

I’d add that I don’t like Friends much either, though not because it repeated plotlines. No, I hated it for being an utterly unironic soap opera underneath the gags.

Which came first, the T. or the stereotype?

We may never know.

Well, the Seinfeld repeating plot is above. 30 Rock in fairness I only watched 10 mins of and by the unfunniness I realized TIna Fey was apparently writing it as well as starring in it, so I couldn’t really continue. But I’m sure it repeats. But from what I’ve seen on the Office, the too-stupid-to-possible-keep-himself-alive boss is always clueless about something and his annoyed staff has to put up with his latest dumb idea, while the guy Dwight does something extremely nerdy and bizarre and that other guy is really dry and sarcastic. Even the most acclaimed sitcom by critics and snobs, Arrested Development, is basically the same plot over and over again, Jason Bateman’s dysfunctional. clueless, selfish, self-absorbed amoral slacker rich family keeps undermining every effort to get his business and family on track, and he has to bail them out of some disastrous fallout in the end. And the characters there are as two-dimensional as Two and a Half Men: the rich snobby matriarch who is pretty much the same character as Charlie’s mom on Two and a Half Men with equal depth, the smart continually flustered protaganist, the bitchy sister, the nerdy son, the slacker brother, the crackpot buffonish brother-in-law. A show considered the ultimate sitcom by many, I Love Lucy, even had only a couple of repeating plots. The whole show was Lucy with some harebrained scheme to get rich or famous behind Ricky’s back, drafting Ethel to join in behind her cheap husband’s back, having it all go sideways, Ricky coming home to get angry at the fallout and Lucy crying when caught. Honeymooners was acclaimed, but it was mostly Ralph being a loudmouth and hatching some scheme at the protest of Alice, drafting Norton into the scheme, having it all blow up in his face and having to eat crow in the end. I actually like Arrested Development, Lucy and Honeymooners, but I can admit the plots have little variety. You watch enough of any show, you’ll see the 3 or 4 repeating plots it has. After all, isn’t that the point of one of the regular features on this very blog, the Storytelling Engine?

As for the macho thing, I just like that it’s one show where a guy can be a guy without it being portrayed as some bad thing. On most comedy shows, if a guy is a macho guy, it’s usually as a foil to show a nerd or geek protaganist in a positive light. Or so that he can learn the error of his ways through the love of a good woman. Or to show how stupid and shallow he is in comparison to his much smarter wife or nerdy friend. Or how he is a moronic, inept boss to his staff of smarter women and geeky men, It’s refreshing to have one source of network TV comedy where a guy is unapologetically insensitive, womanizes, drinks, smokes, gambles, goes on benders, and is materialistic, and not only is there no serious effort to reform him, but he’s actually portrayed as better and a more desirable, mentally and socially healthy option to Jon Cryer’s character, who is the type of good guy nerd we usually get told in modern media is the highest ideal a man can achieve. The mere fact that it makes no efforts to neuter a character like Sheen’s or glorify a character like Cryer’s makes it probably the least cliched, most original and different show currently on television.

Dude, trust me — you haven’t seen enough arrested Development to know what you’re talking about. For one thing, Bateman’s character turns out to be just as horrible as the rest of the family pretty quickly. For another, I’d say fully 2/3 of the episodes are not about the plotline you describe.

Second, as a guy, your idea of “a guy being a guy” is quite possibly the most misandrist notion I’ve ever read. Your view and the stereotypical straw feminist views of men as aspiritual, belching, drunken, horny creatures differ only in that you think all that stuff about men is a good thing, not a bad one. Hell, I’m not sure ho that view could possibly square with some of the ethical stances I’ve seen you take on various issues in other posts.

I was about to make fun of T’s unbelievable bad taste in comedy, but post-Thogal Omar just made it look like a science and I forgot my lab coat. I bow to you, good Mr. Karindu.

Can CSBG have a fund-raiser to get T. some therapy? Somebody did a number on him at some point!

Although I do kind of want to tease Omar for knowing the names of that many characters on 2 1/2 Men.

My parents love the show; alas, no adoption documents turned up when I ransacked the attic.

Ha! No worries, my folks apparently like it too. Another reason I’m glad I live 11 hours away.