In order to combat creative stagnation I now fully embrace gimmicks for the sake of base productivity!

Witness your offering: The Stickfigure Arc (Part 1 of X)

Effort doesn’t equal entertainment. Entertainment doesn’t equal effort.

Here we go: Grigs-B

Apparently I’ve ‘met’ some clever people on the internets over the years, because this bullshit is almost consistently entertaining.

Oh wait. I started at the end.

We’ll parse out the minimalist love-hate over time, as to not blow my load in the opening fucking rant:

While I do enjoy some Sprite and Photos, I can only name one Stickfigure I actually like, and that’s not even lol-true-stick–it’s just a simplistic black outline. So if you’re not Toothpaste for Dinner, and actually use ‘true-sticks,’ chances are that your webcomic is absolute and total shit.

No one will like it. No one will like you. Especially if you use a trackball or pencil.

No one will read it.

Now, I often make the case that quality of art is pointless compared to quality of writing. I mean, if a good joke was written without illustration it’d still be a funny script. However, stickfigure comics actually work backwards, where the absolute not-giving-a-fuck about art devolves any punchline back into some half-assed visual gag hybrid where no lulz can exist other than the smirk that survives after the cringe.

But…

Here we go again: Grigs-B

Art = Stick figures. Fuck it.

Premise/Plot = A shameless self-insertion that doesn’t glorify the creator. That’s a good start. A youth-culture-internet-savvy guy that writes real-life-inspired fantasy arcs about getting chased down by Adobe lawyers via movie-inspired parody. He writes about conversations he has with friends and family. It’s a comic-blog at default, and feels honestly infused with Grigs-B’s personal voice.

Like I said, a good start.

You can drunkenly stumble through six panels of random bullshit, and it’ll be entertaining to some people if it ‘feels’ real. This is the shit I get a hard~on for when I talk about a comic’s ‘voice.’ When you have daily comics rambling about some contrived topical fucktardary, that’s one thing. But there’s a reason we’ll visit weekly comics with subpar everything–and that’s interesting and unpredictable content.

I’m not so fucking ADD I need to check back with the same unfunny fucking daily comic to get my dose of unfunny illustration and banal observation. But with this one, it almost feels like instant payoff when it does update, whether or not the joke is really all that good.

Hidden within are some true and unique gems, like when Grigs-B interacts with his younger sister or cousins, who make our (likely) teenaged creator look like an old fart with their hyper-evolving lingo and jargon. It’s a relatable dynamic, and true to life.

I’m also a big fan of establish-to-payoff, in running gags. Running-gags are almost always forced, but decent pacing and presentation can make them seem unintentional, (aka natural). The art of self-referencing has become rather mechanical, so it’s nice to see a fresh use of ploy.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think better art would help the presentation, and I don’t think any sort of evolved webdesign will make this one popular. Grigs-B is more or less dead in the water, but I’m sure a lot of webcomickers understand how that feels, and they still don’t give a fuck. Fact of the matter is, this is a 30+strip quick read-through, a window into fuck-your-mother youth-culture from an intelligent perspective, and it still doesn’t feel like it has really hit its stride.

I’d say some bullshit like “I’d like to see this one after another six months” but that’s not really the point with stickfigures, or with Grigs-B. The webcomic doesn’t presume to be anything, much less evolve into anything.

I guess there’s a certain charm in that, for me.