I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know a lot about webcomics. I know what they are, of course, and I know that in many cases they revolve around misunderstandings that result in dark and often grotesque shenanigans. You know, sort of like your average episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. On crack. Dirty, tainted, acid laced crack.

So that’s basically where we stand on the whole webcomic issue. I will admit, I’ve thought about doing my own webcomic, because back in the day I enjoyed cartooning and I try on occasion to be somewhat humorous. Plus, I just feel like there are oodles of visual jokes that can be made about woodchucks chucking wood. Seriously, oodles.

Right around the time I was considering doing my own webcomic, Malcolm shot me an e-mail that consisted of, for the first time since I began writing for The Last Gaffe, an actual assignment.

“John,” the e-mail began, as Malcolm clearly seemed to have forgotten my name:

Leave it up to Malcolm to send an e-mail on parchment paper, right?

Despite the fact that he called me by two wrong names and seemed a little too fascinated by the fact that concoct sort of sounds like a slang word for penis, I thought it was a worthy endeavor, and something of particular interest due to the whole me wanting to do a webcomic thing. It was serendipity, only without John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale and with actual humor.

And then it happened. I began looking up some webcomics, and I realized, to my horror, that Malcolm was indeed a heartless, soulless, possibly sexless bastard. Ladies and gentlemen, I learned what many of you already know. Amateur webcomics fucking suck.

Now, I don’t want to rag on people who are trying to be creative and putting it out there for the world to see. That takes guts, and I certainly appreciate that. Hell, it’s no different than what I’m doing right now, or what I was doing the other day when I was wagging my genitals in the front window of my house. I’m just putting it out there for the world to see, and hoping they enjoy it.

But apparently, there are some things that should just never, ever be put out there for the world to see, like another High School Musical movie, or more importantly for the sake of this article, some truly horrific webcomics.

Take this one, for instance:

Animals In The Workplace

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the three or four weeks since Jeff sent me this article, the comic in question has vanished from the very face of the internet, rendering it impossible to grab any example strips. Since it would be remiss of me to have an article on webcomics without any sort of visual aid, I’ve whipped up a facsimile of the strip Jeff’s discussing, taking great pains to preserve the flavor of the original.

They are animals, in a workplace.

The title isn’t lying, it really is about two animals dressed up in ties and, presumably, in the workplace. Of course we never see them doing any actual work, so it’s amazing that they haven’t been fired yet. Perhaps their boss is too terrified of the fact that he’s employing animals that can speak and make bad jokes.

In the comic above, we seem to have one animal, which I guess is a cat, asking about life on other planets. Terrible grammar aside, it’s a decent enough set up for a joke, I suppose. He’s there asking what I guess is a monkey if he has thought about life “out there.” When the monkey says no, the cat just seems confused.

For some reason, he’s under the assumption that the monkey would be curious about life on other planets. I don’t know why, though, it’s not really explained. Are monkeys from space? Does he really like X-Files? Was this monkey the one who went up in the space shuttle? It’s never explained. And neither is the joke. I sat there looking at this thing, thinking perhaps after the first panel, we may have an actual joke. But apparently, the point of the comic is that you… shouldn’t make assumptions about monkeys’ interest in space? Yes, let’s go with that.

Lakitu

Lakitu seems to be someone’s attempt to create a comic strip based around the creatures always trying to get that rascally Super Mario. In concept, it’s not a bad idea really. A lot of humor could be gotten from the hapless underlings of Bowser as they fumble around and fuck up every chance to stop a fat Italian plumber from ruining their boss’s day. Unfortunately, we’re left with some dude mistakenly thinking he’s spotted Mario, and some other dude who reiterates to himself that there is, in fact, a bridge. Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.

Dragon Ballz

I immediately regretted this decision. I should warn you, if you click on that link you’ll see a badly drawn penis. I’m just throwing that out there right now to save you from what I had to see for the sake of this article.

I’m still not sure what the hell was going on in this comic. Apparently, it’s about some dude named “Rabbits” who comes to earth looking for the titular Dragon Ballz. Apparently, these Dragon Ballz will make him a true man. From the looks of him, I’m thinking “Dragon Ballz” is code for “penis enlargement.” And if you’re like me, by the time you get to that last panel you’ll be wishing the author had named the comic “Dragon Pantz.”

And at that point, I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t go on, looking from one horrifying webcomic to the next. What would my innocent eyes be forced to look upon next? Donkey Kong joining those crazy kids from Latiku and swapping stories about the time they almost had Mario? Pikachu fucking a horse? More horribly executed jokes than a Carlos Mencia stand up routine?

But for the sake of this article, I decided to look at just one more. Maybe by happy mistake I’d click on one redeeming webcomic, which would give me hope that maybe, just maybe, all hope was not lost, and that I might not be completely dissuaded from making my own foray into what, up to this point, had struck me as an awful, awful place. Surely, there would be one comic that might restore my faith in humanity, right?

Numa Numa

Apparently not.

This past Christmas, my son received a Star Wars branded fishing pole from a relative. It was literally a small child-sized fishing pole with Darth Vader on the reel and R2D2 on a disk at the end of the line. It made no sense whatsoever. Even I, one who had never seen the trilogy before had a hunch that there was little to no fishing involved. Unless I was about to stumble upon a touching reconciliation-themed fishing trip between evil dark overlord and son, I’m pretty sure someone would have mentioned a desire to toss a line over the hull of the Millennium Falcon on their bucket list. But, as baffling as that toy is, I really dig it. The kids rarely pay attention to it, preferring instead the far more logical Spongebob fishing pole. That leaves me to absent-mindedly flick it across the room while sitting at the computer. I think it’s because the pole and I are a kindred spirit of sorts.

If you take the entire genre of science fiction out of the Nerd Equation, my geek pedigree is as pure and true as toothless and sickly British royalty. I was in the marching band (brass playas, holla), I was an organizer of the high school Renaissance Fair, I played weekly D&D games, and I followed Kevin Smith movie with a zeal that would rival the most pasty of virgins. Science fiction was just something I never got into. So ignorant I was of even the most basic of references, I sometimes felt like a branding mistake. No matter how thick my black-rimmed glasses were, my knowledge was as relevant as a Star Wars fishing pole.

This might soon change. I actually really dug The Empire Strikes Back. So much so that I had to stop myself from reaching for the next installment less this article be soiled by too much knowledge. But lets get the surprises out of the way first:

* I was expecting more action.

* I was expecting Billy Dee Williams to be an active rebel who turns out to be an Imperial spy.

* I was expecting Han’s “I know” to be a completely different tone.

* I was expecting Luke’s hand to stay off.

The Empire Strikes Back was about a thousand times better than A New Hope. Both the actors and the characters were more mature and more interesting to watch. Instead of a whiny teenager, Luke’s now a petulant young man and a cross between impatience and hubris. Which sounds unpleasant, but is actually refreshing in its realism. Darth Vader’s vulnerability is more apparent, but I’m not sure if they hinted at this in the first one since I was slightly drunk. And although Han and Leah’s Sam and Diane shtick was overplayed, annoying, and retardedly dialogued, it mercifully stopped when Billy Dee’s smoooooothness came into the picture. Smooth.

Plus, there was the added bonus of finally getting pathetically specific references!

"HNNNNNNNNNN"

"NRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

-words from a cartoon-

-words from Star Wars-

I know there’s more, but I’m working backwards here.

Oh, man and there’s so much more in store for me! Finally caring about Randall’s Death Star rant on Clerks! Finally getting about one quarter of the Craption submissions at Cracked! Not being made fun of by Derek over at the comic book store! (I hate him so much.) But I don’t see this turning into a faggathon in the way of dressing up at conventions and whatnot. I just think it was a very cool movie that I’ll probably watch again one day.

Now, on to Return of the Jedi!

——————————————————————-

AND NOW, THE SITE NEWS WITH MALCOLM

Finally, look for me to be posting some of the wacky shit I’ll be making as part of my school assignments. Technically everything I create while attending VFS is property of the school, but apparently they will very politely not sue me so long as I don’t sell it. So don’t nobody go giving me huge sums of money for the things I make, because that would be awful.

It may sound weird to some readers, but I haven’t listened to pop music since N*sync broke up. I shudder to think that there is a correlation there, but I digress.

"Music peaked with N*Sync" - TLG Contributor Jay Thomas

Don’t get me wrong, I still listen to the radio, but only for sports talk, because I’m a man. A man that loves sports and steak and boobies and any combination of those. But I prefer listening to uncensored, uninterrupted music on my mp3 player rather than going through the torture of local DJ’s and what I assume is shitty music. But that is really an unfair assessment. After all, how can I judge what I have not listened too? It is with that cavalier attitude that I resolved to listen to a few popular songs.

Boom, Boom, Pow – The Black-eyed Peas

"Fergie gives me boners" - TLG Mouthbreather Jay Thomas

I know what you’re thinking, but unfortunately this song (if it can be called that) is not an homage to the classic 1966 film, “Batman” starring Adam West and Burt Ward. The reason? A song about that movie would kick ass, while Boom Boom Pow eats ass.

In the tradition of Bobby McFarren’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” most of the so-called music on the track actually comes from the band saying, “boom, boom, boom” like fucking Bam-Bam. The first verse is pretty painless, but then the silky smooth auto-tuned voice is transformed into some kind of ungodly shrieking and yelling from Fergie. There is a musical interlude involving more shouting of, “Boom! Boom!” followed by an inhuman voice saying something along the lines of, “Let the beast rise.” I thought maybe I was hearing things, before I realized that, in fact it was part of the arrangement. This is just terrible.

Lyric Of Note:

“I’m so three-thousand eight, you so two-thousand and late.”

What the fuck does that mean? Hypothesis: Fergie is actually a 3008 year old succubus that thrives on the misery of others.

So, the first song was a bust. Let’s see what this 3OH!3 is all about.

3OH!3 – Don’t Trust Me

"3Oh!3 give me double the boners that Fergie does" - TLG Ladyboy Enthusiast Jay Thomas

There is some good advice here in the form of, “Don’t trust a ho, don’t trust a ho, NEVER trust a ho.” (I could be mistaken but I’m pretty sure they lifted that line from a Bob Dylan song.) The song then takes a fairly dark turn when the femme-voiced guy starts talking about some girl who is drunk and bruised. This horrifying image is then paired with the lyric, “Shush girl, shut your lips, do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.” Taken at face value, this line informs the listener of Helen Keller’s main mode of communication (talking with her hips,) but I see a scenario of a womanizing, cheating, wife beating, alcoholic taking advantage of underage girls. For shame, 3Oh!3. For shame.

Lyric Of Note:

“Don’t trust a ho.”

This statement alone should be integrated into our education system. Millions would be saved.

3Oh!3 was more enjoyable than the Black Eyed Peas, but less enjoyable than getting a cavity filled so let’s continue onward and hopefully upward.

Lady Gaga – Poker Face

"Though I would not touch Lady Gaga with the dick of a dead man, I am entraced by her dog's come-hither gaze" TLG Pyronecrobestiality Expert Jay Thomas

There is an immense pressure building in my skull. OH SWEET LORD, MY EARS ARE BLEEDING!!!

Lyric Of Note:

I don’t know. The last thing I remember before blacking out was “Show him what I got.”

Pitbull – I Know You Want Me

"This full, luscious ass fills me only with distrust and rage" TLG Cocksucker Jay Thomas

I’m not going to lie; I was kind of hoping that this would sound like “I Want You To Want Me.” However, it proved to be a perfectly serviceable hip-hop/dance single, except for the fact that I could only understand like 8 words in the entire song. I realize that some of it is in Spanish, but a good 2/3 is just random words assembled in what appears to be a message derived from the nonsensical ramblings of someone who just suffered a brain injury. It’s clear from the lyrics that Mr. Bull knows that he is desired by an attractive lady, but everything else is up for debate. Lest you think that my white, suburban ears are casting some kind of prejudice on Pit, here are some lyrics:

Mami got an ass like a donkey
With a monkey
Look like King Kong, welcome to the crib
305, that’s what it is
With a woman down here
The shit don’t play games

What the fuck does that mean? Intrigued, I looked into Pitbull’s other songs to see if this was a one time anomaly. What I found was truly disturbing:

Mami, feel me let me see you touch your toes
or shake that thing and talk wit’ your ass

I may be in the minority here, but even if you are quite a prolific ass-talker (Jim Carrey,) it isn’t the kind of thing that would put me in a taxi straight to bonerville.

Lyric Of Note:

See above.

Even with the confusing lingo, I still liked Pitbull’s song. It was energetic and a little dirty (I think) which is what a club hit is supposed to be.

So what have I learned from my experience with current pop music? Based on the sampling I had, I can safely say that ¾ of all current pop music is absolutely terrible. But the other quarter is inspiring, disturbing, arousing, and disgusting simultaneously.

EDIT: The night I finished the draft for this article, I was wooing this cute girl at the club. Feeling like I should let her know how hip I was, I told her that she had a “talking donkey ass” and was quickly and mercilessly shot down and spat upon. In retrospect, Pitbull is a jackass and all pop music is terrible.

EDIT II: I realize that calling Pitbull a jackass may be misconstrued as a flirtatious gesture in some circles. Allow me to clarify. Fuck Pitbull.

EDIT III: Shit. “Fuck Pitbull.” I didn’t mean this literally. I meant to say that Pitbull is not a nice man and that I care nothing for him or his music.

EDITOR’S AFTERWORD: Those of you paying close attention to the picture captions may have noticed a slight discrepancy between them and the opinions Jay puts forward in the rest of the article. I know nothing about this. However, I do know that if I were the kind of person who insulted Canada every chance I got, I would not be very surprised if my Canadian editor altered one of my articles to make me seem like a deranged mental pervert.

Great article, Jay!

I Googled "male crotch balls" without thinking of the consequences, and I just don't have the heart to inflict what I saw on the rest of you, so here are some Husky puppies instead.

With that out of the way, let’s get down to business! For the purposes of this review, I’m going to assume a few things:

- That you have read the graphic novel on which the film is based

- That you don’t care about spoilers, and

- That you are going to go somewhere else after reading this to get a serious, well-reasoned viewpoint, because you sure as fuck aren’t going to get that here.

One more warning before we really start chowing down on the meat of this thing – talking about the movie itself isn’t as important to me as telling the gripping tale of my movie-going experience, because I am an immense narcissist. That being said, if you’re just reading this because you need one more faceless person’s opinion so you can argue with your friends (“Well, Malcolm Christiansen said…” “Who?”) I’ll give you the following blurb as a gesture of good faith:

“You’ll enjoy it more if you haven’t read the graphic novel. It’s perfectly solid film, it’s just not as good or powerful as the book, which should come as a surprise to nobody.”

(Feel free to toss that on DVDs, book jackets, whatever you got.)

SPOILER ALERT: This image appears in the film.

Part 1: The Setup

In order to properly profile my Watchmen experience, I’ll need to talk a little about the Comox Valley, which is my hometown and where I’m living while I wait for school to start anew. The Valley is actually a trio of smallish cities (Comox, Courtenay, and Cumberland,) with a total population of about 60,000. There are three remarkable things about the Comox Valley:

1. Its flourishing population of retirees. Thanks to them, the average age is about 65 and the fastest growing sector of our economy is chain drugstores.

2. Its nearly incandescent whiteness. In my high school’s grad class there were two black kids, three natives, and four Asians out of about 200. I can’t really blame black and Asian people for not rushing the Valley, mostly owing to point number three:

3. Its oppressive boringness. There is seriously nothing to fucking do in this town, and it drives me crazy every time I come back. All the businesses close at nine o’clock sharp (if not before,) and crime is literally nonexistent. I can remember a couple of years ago when the big news in the papers was about a rash of lawn ornament thefts. This would be adorably quaint if I didn’t have to fucking live here for several months.

One of the Valley's rare young people makes a desperate suicide attempt in one of the countryside's many scenic rivers.

All of this is a very roundabout way of explaining why there were only about twenty people waiting in line when I rolled up to the town’s only movie theatre.

Part 2: The Pre-Game

But I’m getting ahead of myself, as unlikely as that seems. Being the insufferable narcissist that I am (I think I mentioned that earlier,) I tend to have a slightly skewed set of priorities when attending geeky shit. I like to work out beforehand, put on some of my finer duds, that sort of thing. There’s something about knowing everyone else in attendance isn’t going to give half a shit about how they’re dressed that brings out my inner priss, and this occasion was no different.

For tonight, I settle on a pair of basic black wingtips, some tight jeans (for the ladies,) a similarly constricting sweater, and a good scarf. No reason to go crazy for the little people, after all.

I was going to snap a few vanity shots before leaving, but my camera ran out of batteries. You'll just have to get the idea from this photo of Aaron Eckhart. Yeah, that's about right.

Arriving at the theatre, I receive some good and bad news. The good news is that I am definitely the best-dressed motherfucker waiting patiently in line. The bad news is that the only people there to observe my fabulousness are other dudes, which is somewhat disheartening. I guess it was kind of stupid to hope that I was going to get laid at the Watchmen premiere, but a guy has to dream.

Sitting down, I am newly amazed by how unrepentantly commercial the previews have gotten. There’s the usual gamut of car ads and desperate urgings towards fifteen-dollar snack combos, but things don’t really come to head for me until I’m subjected to not one, but two back-to-back music videos of carbon-copy “grrl-rockers” singing about being fresh and unique and not letting society change them while they prance about on a hundred-thousand-dollar soundstage wearing about a half-pound of makeup and a carefully focus-grouped “bad girl” outfit that Avril Lavigne would discard on the basis of it being “too fake.”

"Hey y'all, just kickin' it out here on the street with my imaginary friends that the studio hired."

Is this actually a thing now? Am I going to have to watch shitty music videos every time I watch a movie from now on? For fuck’s sake, I stopped watching music videos three fucking years ago, and forcing that shit down my throat while I’m trapped in a movie theatre is no fucking way to get me back into it. Needless to say, I vomit copiously and then go looking for a teenager to strangle, of which there are no shortage. In minutes, I have the row to myself.

(The previews weren’t all obnoxious horseshit, I’m happy to say. The trailer for Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins sent furious currents of electricity coursing through my entire body, briefly setting my testicles ablaze.)

You heard it here first, folks; Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins is worth a pair of singed nuts.

Part 3: This Is Where I Start Talking About Watchmen

It ought to be abundantly apparent to anyone who’s made it this far into my meanderings that concepts such as “focus” and “order” are, at best, being stingily applied to this review in order to free up room for self-indulgence. I see no reason to divert from this review philosophy, and as such the portion of this review in which I actually talk about the film will be delivered in point form as things occur to me.

What? Did you actually expect me to be taking notes or something?

- As in the comic, the movies makes no attempt to explain why the images on Rorschach’s mask are always changing. Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing that the movie doesn’t beat us over the head with. Major plot points are repeated at least three times each. Dr. Manhattan actually says to Silk Spectre: “The Comedian was your father!” I’m guessing that this was an abbreviated version of his line in the first draft of the script, which probably looked something like “The Comedian was your father, which is alarming and confusing because he attempted to rape your mother once but then she later had consensual sex with him, which lead to your conception!”

- I thought that Ozymandias’s costume was kind of weird. The costume designers obviously took enormous pains to make every character’s costume not only true to the comic, but also visually exciting, with lots of bright, eye-catching colors. Except for Ozymandias, whose costume is basically a big lump of molded mauve plastic with abs everywhere:

Ozymandias isn't very "bright" in the movie. Har!

My theory is that the costume designers took one look at Mathew Goode (who looks prepubescent throughout the entire film,) and said “Fuck it. What’s the point?”

- I’m pretty sure that the guy playing Nixon learned to do so by watching the Futurama version. There were a couple of times that I could have sworn he was about to break into a throaty “BRBRBRBRBRBRBRRRRR.”

- Zack Snyder’s patented brand of Slow-Fast Action Physics make a resurgence here. Motherfuckers go flying all over the place. Yeah, it’s kind of silly.

- Speaking of things that are all over the place, Dr. Manhattan’s big azure package probably had more screentime than Ozymandias. There’s one scene where his dick is onscreen in no fewer than four places.

Yup, that's the scene.

Don’t get me wrong, the big blue dongs are canon. I just kind of wish that Snyder had treated them with a little more reverence, rather than just using them to fill up dead air.

- I found Malin Akerman really annoying as Silk Spectre. Of course, I found Silk Spectre really annoying in the comic. Good job, Malin!

- My favorite performances unquestionably came from Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffery Dean Morgan as The Comedian. It probably says something about what kind of a movie this is that the two most nuanced characters are both deranged murderers.

- Conversely, I felt like the weakest performance came from Mathew Goode as Ozymandias. As I mentioned earlier, he’s incredibly, laughably scrawny, and has all the natural grace, charm, and charisma of an Excel spreadsheet. Every time he spoke I half expected someone to push him over and take his lunch money.

- Whoever set up the soundtrack really needs a few solid thumps upside the noggin. There’s really no good way to articulate exactly why this is other than going to see the movie yourself, unfortunately.

I thought the puppy picture up there needed some kittens to even it out. Kittens!

In spite of all my disorganized nitpicking, I encourage everyone to go see this film. If it has a flaw, it’s that it really wasn’t long enough to encapsulate everything that Moore packed into his amazing graphic novel. The acting is absolutely flawless, and Snyder (in spite of his penchant for creating drawn-out, boring fight scenes,) has put together an incredibly faithful adaptation.

Really though, the only question you have to ask yourself is “Have I been waiting for a Watchmen movie to be made ever since I read the book?” If the answer is yes, then you should go see it, because you owe it to yourself to see what it looks like.

(“It” being Billy Cruddup’s dong, of course.)