Thread "Mob Ties" in forum "The Webcomic Review Forum for the Webcomic Review Comic on the Web"

Posted at 10:07PM, Jul. 11, 2010

So, thank for the review, sorry about the complaints. Still, it's probably the most views your review comic has ever had.

-_^ I don't know about most people, but as for me, this comes off as rather egotistical.

Why? You may ask.

Telling someone that, is about equivalent to saying that your gracing someone with there presence. I'll be honest, saying that this comic is a parody of a review is pretty damned arrogant as well. If you had bothered to read this comic, which only has 51 pages that's twenty minutes tops, you would realize that to get a good review on this site you have to have charm, good art, and good writing. You can get by without one of them, but the other two have to be top notch to do so. I'll be honest, the writing and the art were average at best and the charm was in the humor, but humor left the party a while ago.

@Taltamir:

Name: Adam Warnock

Age: 20

e-mail: salsa.the.geek@gmail.com

Major: Computer Science

This is in response to a comment left in this comic's review page. I do not hide behind a veil of anonymity. I do not need to hide behind a persona crafted of spite. I invite you to do your worse. I am ready. I am willing. I am more than capable of taking anything you can dish out. You have shown nothing but disrespect for Harkovast and Kevin. You have attacked a comic done by Harkovast, saying it looks like it was drawn by an eight year old. This is not the mark of someone who does not hide behind the anonymity of the internet. This is the mark of a troll sir. I am normally a rather nice person. I joke, I laugh, and I take whatever I dish out. You total disregard for the request of the creators of this comic has put me in a rather spiteful mood. Attack me if you wish. Smear my name with your shit and try to shatter my reputation among the few that know me. I will let my actions clear my name. In short…

Bring it.

Edit: Almost slipped my mind Softcore porn, Taltamir, is pornography that does not show two people going at it like two monkeys in heat at the height of mating season. Hardcore porn does. Softcore porn is what you'd find in Playboy and Maxim. There I hope you've learned something today.

Edit 2: Just read Dr. Luck's post and she's damn right. I have problems with inking and drawing on my tablet, but that never stopped me from using them. I ink more often and I use my tablet to draw all the time. DoaMP is done entirely on my tablet to try and learn how to deal with the visual disconnect. Is the art good? In my opinion it's pretty crappy, but I have done over thirty comics, one of which has a road going up a hill in perspective. If you have troubles drawing something, work at it. If that doesn't work, take a class on it. I still have problems with human anatomy and I'm going to be taking figure drawing this next semester. Also, now that I think about it. That style shtick is bullshit. DoaMP is a rather simplistic style, but that is far form my only one. I can emulate several other peoples styles and have be trying to cultivate my own style for use in my own stories. For more on why it's bullshit see here. IF that's not enough go here and post one of the concept sketches for MT. I think most of those guys will agree with me.

As for the filler, that and the story just getting boring made me lose interest in this comic. I took it off my favorites and stopped reading. Filler is, in general, a bad idea. As Dr. Luck said, if you're posting filler every week, it's time to rethink your update schedule. The first Mafia game I gm'd I had to change the time I did the narratives because I missed the deadline two times in a row. It's the same principle here bud.

I'm also going to address an issue that Dr. Luck didn't. Most of DD's members are from the US and Europe with some Australians and Asians mixed in. Most of those members are going to see a 15 year old girl being sexualized as mildly disturbing to out right wrong and disgusting. Harkovast and Kev have already said that under-aged fan-service is one of their buttons. As to your rebuttal, how the hell are a 16 year olds breasts going jiggle in a bathing suit relevant to the plot? If you wanted to show that Sid wanted to bang her, there are much more subtle and tasteful ways to do it (admittedly not much more tasteful since it's a 40 something wanting to have sex with a teenager). Oh and the jiggle sound effect was a nice touch.

In short, you have just proven that Kev and Harkovast have basically hit the nail on the head.

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 11, 2010

I had a long rant here, but I'm going to boil my opinion down to two sentences.

I don't like the drawing style; it's cheap and its sloppy, even if it does manage to convey its meaning. I wont ever be able to care about the plot because I can't bring myself to read something this visually low grade when there are so many much more graphically appealing comics out there.

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 11, 2010

So, I took a glance at this comic Mob Ties, and I stopped almost immediately. I didn't read one sentence, nor did I get to the pages that pissed off the reviewers so much (the infamous fanservice), but I looked at at least five pages, before I saw the problem:

the icon for the comic on the top 10 has better art than the comic itself (though that's not saying much).

Now, for starters, I can't stand manga-inspired art to begin with, so already I have a bias. Still, I wouldn't mind manga so much if every schmuck with a pencil didn't decide to rip off the art from a how-to-draw book from 20 years ago. That said, I think the only thing lazier than manga ripoff is sprite comics, and my hate for those is over a thousand fold.

I was willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt they weren't just a lazy artist until they decided to post that "It's my style. Don't like it? Bite me. I've been drawing like this for 24 years, I'm not about to make a drastic change." Well, then you are no artist. If you feel that there is no improvement to made what-so-ever, then you are a hack, pure and simple. As pointed out by other people before, a real artist makes leaps and bounds to try to improve their art, no matter what. They practice, take classes, look up tips, accept critiques, etc. A true artist is never satisfied with their old work, otherwise they will stagnate and become irrelevant.

Also, just because you work 40 hours does not give you an excuse. When I started Negligence, I was just starting my senior year of college for my illustration degree, had a really stressful job on the weekend at a small yet very busy local restaurant, was going through a lot of personal issues that I'm not going to share on here, and yet I was able to work on several strips at a time and upload them onto a website. Even then, I realized what I was doing wasn't great, so I went about improving my artwork despite all those obstacles standing in the way. If you feel you can't update in time, then don't update every single day.

Finally, I don't think you've read this review comic before. These guys are not going to kiss your ass just because you have a top rated comic on the front page. If they find faults, they will mention them. This is true of every single review they've done. Hell, I had my comic reviewed on here months ago and they ripped it apart, yet I'm typing here defending them. What does that say? Maybe a little slice of humble pie would be good for you.

Of course, this whole rant was from looking at the art. If the art isn't good enough to attract readers, then you better be Pearls Before Swine, otherwise your writing is probably not good either.

Anyway, good luck with Anecdote, guys. Personally, it's one of my favorites, and the author doesn't strike me as an asshole.

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 11, 2010

Oh my god. Where do I begin.

And again, as if to prove me right, a Mob Ties fan insults us rather then defend the kiddie fan service.
Proof that you cant defend the indefensible.

Victimizing yourself in a discussion is a known tactic and a low one. You know what is going to happen when you oppose something popular. But never ever use such a thing as prove that every fan of something is a babbling buffoon and you are right.

I seriously doubt that Hark was trying to rouse pity. He merely pointed out that taltamir seemed more interested in attacking who he was arguing with, rather than making an actual point.

The fact author ninja asked this review himself, is no reason to say that fans of the webcomic shouldn't reply on the review.

No one ever said this. I suggested that people with arguments to make for or against the review should comment here, so as to avoid excessive clutter on the comic page. After all, this is what the forum is for.

It seems to me as a honest question of author ninja, about what is good in the comic and what could be made better. Only naming the cons is like telling him to stop the comic, because it is rubbish in your opinion. Giving feedback needs to call the pro's and con's. The fact he updates almost every weekday is something remarkable. And not many do that on drunkduck. Maybe this rate should be lowered in favour of better backgrounds. that seems to me as viable feedback.

We are not telling him to stop making the comic. Frankly, if someone decided to stop making their comic on account of a bad review, even one this harsh, I would question their integrity. That's not really how that's supposed to work - you take the criticisms, decide which you agree with and which you don't, and try to apply them to your work in hopes of making it better. We pointed out what we felt were faults, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a rather large part of what a critique is supposed to do. We didn't find any positive qualities to speak of - what do we do then, praytell? Make them up? Patronizing someone who's asked for a review is, in my eyes, far worse than ripping their work to shreds.

taltamir, you read my comment about as carefully as you apparently read Mob Ties; I never said that the panel with the girl crying in the bathroom is a panty shot. What I said was that her ass juts out in a short skirt, with her legs strewn about behind her. Who cries into a guy's chest like this? And more importantly, why was it necessary to show it this way? For a full body shot, she could have been curled up against him, she could have been kneeling. She could have been sitting! But no, she is posed with her ass out. Why was it drawn this way? I notice that that's the only thing you defend, as well - so I'll assume that you agree when I say that the dialogue leading up to that moment was painfully trite.

Wordweaver, I agree that calling it the worst art is a stretch. It really isn't. I still think of it as below average manga-styled scribblings, and the only improvement it's seen over the course of a THOUSAND PAGES is a slightly cleaner appearance and the addition of color. It still doesn't look like anything special, and has grown to be, at its very best moments (usually filler), average.

FlyingGreenMonkey, I have to disagree that we're receiving good counter points. As you say, different strokes for different folks - so perhaps I'm not up for dealing with young girls in skimpy outfits. That means that the comic should have something to fall back on, another strong quality that maybe I could enjoy. Mob Ties doesn't have a single one.

First of all, I would like to apologize for my fans. I did sort of feel bad about the review and wanted to show off why, but I didn't expect so many of them to start fights on the Webcomic review site. I don't condone what some of them are doing, but…Can't control the fans.

I won't make excuses or defend anything I've done. I won't even really explain it, because that would be a waste of time. If you don't like it, fine, I'll just suck it up and take the criticism. Do I care? Yeah, I do genuinely want people to like my comic, But I feel like it's not really a review. It's almost like a parody of a review. It's almost like some reviewers who purposely complain about something for the sake of being funny. I did ask to be reviewed without checking out past reviews so I was a bit surprised by how harsh it was, but when someone says that your comic is the worst thing they've ever read, well a little bit of a shocked and angry response is only natural.

Up to this point, I was prepared to compliment you for being such a good sport, and try to personally explain the review to you. Although… asking someone for a review without even bothering to read their previous reviews makes you look a bit shortsighted and self-serving.

Bottom line is, Japanese media has completely different standards than American comics. Here's some examples.

I don't need your examples, I already can see the ludicrous argument you're about to bring up. "This is how they do it in some countries"?? That's the best you can come up with? Are you Japanese? Do you live in Japan? Even if you are and do, that defense would only explain rather than justify, but if not then it's an even more useless point. In the Middle East, women are property, to be treated as however their fathers and husbands see fit. Does that mean that if I make a comic about a guy beating the shit out of his wife because she spoke her mind in public, I can refer to that and say that it should be acceptable on those grounds? Absolutely not! What's next? Will Mika become a sex slave for someone because that happens in some parts of the world, and is therefore acceptable?

Surely you knew that this content would rub some people the wrong way, there's no way you can be that naive. It's socially acceptable there? Well that's great, only it isn't here. And since I was raised in this culture, and brought up to believe that youth lasts a little bit longer, and that it's wrong to corrupt youth, I find your comic offensive. As does Hark, who (on this subject, at least) holds the same values. I can't make myself any clearer. You didn't ask a Japanese guy for a review, you asked us, so for you to not have expected that blows my mind.

The plot seems to be perfectly followable to the point that some of my fans can even predict where the story is going. If you can't follow the plot, no skin off my nose. Go read a video game comic.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. What did I just say a few posts up? It is NOT difficult to follow. It is difficult to read because the story is ridiculous. A number of times I had to stop reading because it was so bad, the first such occasion was when the previous fiancee was dressed up as a girl.

So, thank for the review, sorry about the complaints. Still, it's probably the most views your review comic has ever had.

EDIT: Hahahahahahahahahaha

Posted at 12:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

OK,

1. Everyone is entitled to their own opnions. Some like it, some don't.

2. Fanservice is just fanservice. If the author wants to base a whole comic on fanservice(which I don't think MT does) then so be it.

3. Porn? Really, porn? You do realize that DD has a whole section and rating of "Adult" here right? Yes, she is 15 in the begening, but the main charcter does not try anything with her.

4. I will admit that the first few pages were confusing, I did have a hard time getting it, but after reading into it, I was begening to get it.

5. If you only read up to page 10, then I guess that you could get the idea that he wanted to marry a 15 year old, but he didnt't. Page 14-16 tells that he wanted to marry the 15 year olds sister-in-law, which of whom he did not know was married.

6. To my knowledge, the author does this comic A.)For fun, and B.)For his fans who love the comic.

7. He did research for this comic. He looked up information for this comic, for example:
-The outfits for girls in Japan are just that, a shirt and what you called 'panties' are acutally bloomers. And yes they do wear them in Japan, or as I have seen (i.e. looked up here http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080430183126AA9v8TQ ) they may not be used any more in some parts.
-The marring age in Japan is: "The male partner must be 18 years ofage or older and the female partner must be 16 years of age or older." (quoted from
http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-7114a.html )

8. Arranged marriage still exists. The engagment between the main guy and the main girl (the 15yrold) is arranged by her father (because of a misunderstanding - see #5) It is done for many reasons. Go look here - http://www.professorshouse.com/family/relationships/arranged-marriages-japan.aspx

9. Fillers have a place, and though he may use them alot (I'm not complaining, I personally like them), he usually has a good reason. Besides, sometimes the fillers are good, or are of another artist to which we can appreciate, and give the artist a needed break to either relax, or take some time to make more pages. I'm not just saying this because some of those fillers were mine either. And I already know that my filler-comic-thing was crap shit.

10. Beauty is in the eye of the holder. I like the art. Some don't. There are some comics out there that have below par art. Some are just stick figures. Art is art. Don't base a review on the art. There are a lot of comic with no layout or backbround at all or they steal backgrounds from other artists.

I love this comic. I can't remember what turned me to read Mob Ties, but I'm glad it did. This is all based on my personal opnion.

My personal opnion, you should not base on what you are going to read (or anything else in general) on the opnion of two random people online (or anyone else in general). Don't knock something before trying it. Just because someone else doesn't like it, doesn't mean you won't. Of course you could be mindless sheep, and be safe and not do anything for your self or make any of your own decisions and let others say what you should eat, drink, do and other shit. It's your choise or….whatever.

Posted at 12:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

Damn, that is a lot of posts!
I will go through tonight and address everyones specific points/complaints/hate mail.
There are so many people getting in on both sides that I will need a few hours to read what everyone is saying, let alone reply!

Posted at 12:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

Isn't it great? We've made finally it to TWO pages on one of these threads! THE GOOD GUY THREAD HAS BEEN DETHRONED

Posted at 1:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

…

All I have to say about Mob ties is that it is a Manga Parody Comic. It's American styled manga art, I'm not about to claim it's actual manga because the slavering manga fans would tear me apart. As for my art. It's my style. Don't like it? Bite me. I've been drawing like this for 24 years, I'm not about to make a drastic change. And I'm not great at backgrounds. It's a failing I'm willing to admit. I don't have great spacial relation and have a hard time drawing anything technical. It's a character driven comic anyway, if you read it to admire the furniture, I feel sorry for you.

…

However, some good did come from all this. I've discovered the sheer level of hatred people have for fillers, so those are out. But for your information, it's not laziness. I work 40 hours ever week and then spend close to another 40 hours a week working on the comic. But if people are still going to bitch about a little placeholder, then I'm fine with that. Fillers are out.

So, thank for the review, sorry about the complaints. Still, it's probably the most views your review comic has ever had.

I have gone from neutral to pissed from this post alone. It's this kind of attitude that makes me want to reach across the internet and slap you in the face ten times over. Fans getting pissed off? Nah. Insults being thrown? Nope. This post is the most ridiculous thing I've read (quoting the parts I'm in particular disgusted to see you say).

First off, there is always room for improvement. You as an artist should be looking at what you lack and build on it. Don't like drawing backgrounds? Make yourself draw them. Not good at drawing cars? Draw them. Soon enough, backgrounds aren't an issue anymore, and you can draw a damned nice Ferrari. You should never fall into "I've drawn like this for years so I'm not going to change" mode of thinking if you want to make the best at what you do. Can't do spacial? So what? I can give you a bunch of guides on point perspective if you'd like. It's really simple if you know the trick behind it.

And yes, I would love to admire the furniture. Because you know what furniture does? It tells me about the characters. Example: the difference between an art deco chair and a beanbag chair in a character's home.

Art deco suggests the person is either my middle aged aunt or deeply cares about the appearance of their home. This can lead to suggesting a character having self-image issues and trying to put on a perfect look behind a fragile ego.

Beanbag chair can suggests a character is laid back and just wants something comfy to sit in in their spare time. It's more open, obvious, and frank.

Color and fabric can even change a tone. What do you think when you see a black, leather couch versus a cheap couch with springs popping out of it?

My point: The setting adds to the characters. You're a character driven comic? It's the perfect reason to introduce setting. What if I walked into your apartment/house and see a bunch of garbage lying around? And if I walked in and it's completely clean? Things like that add a lot.

As to the second paragraph, it's being lazy. I'm a junior going to senior at a rigorous art college that requires three studio classes and two history/liberal classes. Each studio class is five hours long. Each homework assignment is five hours long at least (meeting once a week). Liberal/history takes two hours each, with perhaps an hour of homework each week. That's, in total so far, 36 hours. That's not adding in my hours of working for money, which is generally 8 hours a week.

44 hours, about the same as your work schedule not even getting into comic time. I know exactly how you feel, so don't pull the "Oh, I'm so busy all the time" card.

Now, let's say that instead of doing (estimate) five comics a week, you instead do two. Take that 40 hours and split it. About 8 hours per comic page, brings you to 16 hours total. Add in time to do things you're not really sure to do, and you got:

1) Two damned nice comic pages that let you expand as an artist
2) A far more engaging setting to add to your story
3) More clues about characters or even moods. Blue, dim room during the rain versus a bright, colorful room in the sunshine is a big difference.
4) An update schedule you can keep up with without filler

And plenty of time to spare to do other things, like drawing more. I don't mean comic pages, I meant just drawing more. You can never draw enough.

I just explained to you everything you can do that can help improve your comic, your art, and even your personal schedule. If you further feel that you "don't need to change anything" or "are good enough" at what you do, then I'm sorry. You fail as an artist just by that concept. Always accept critiques, always do better than before, and always do something new.

Its this type of comment that make me want to reach through the screen and smack someone.

1! Not everyone can approve. There is a thing could plateau effect. Also not everyone has to improve. To think that everyone does is just stupid.

2! I agree scenari does add something to a character. You made a very good point.

3! YOUR A BEEPING ART MAGOR! Of course you want everyone to get better at art. But your in school! He is trying to scrap by in a thing called the real world. Its outside of college. You might find it once your done with your education. In my opinion just classes and 8 hours of work a week is not as hard as having two jobs.

I don't need your examples, I already can see the ludicrous argument you're about to bring up. "This is how they do it in some countries"?? That's the best you can come up with? Are you Japanese? Do you live in Japan? Even if you are and do, that defense would only explain rather than justify, but if not then it's an even more useless point. In the Middle East, women are property, to be treated as however their fathers and husbands see fit. Does that mean that if I make a comic about a guy beating the shit out of his wife because she spoke her mind in public, I can refer to that and say that it should be acceptable on those grounds? Absolutely not! What's next? Will Mika become a sex slave for someone because that happens in some parts of the world, and is therefore acceptable?

Surely you knew that this content would rub some people the wrong way, there's no way you can be that naive. It's socially acceptable there? Well that's great, only it isn't here. And since I was raised in this culture, and brought up to believe that youth lasts a little bit longer, and that it's wrong to corrupt youth, I find your comic offensive. As does Hark, who (on this subject, at least) holds the same values. I can't make myself any clearer. You didn't ask a Japanese guy for a review, you asked us, so for you to not have expected that blows my mind.

When you do a story that is set in a foreign country what would be better? Ignoring their the culture of said country or putting westernization into it? But I do agree with you that it is perfectly acceptable to have those who would be rub the wrong way. But I find it mind boggling that you would not see that a story from another country should not have that culture in it.

I like the art. In my opinion it is better than most the people's in this thread who said it was bad or sub par. Note how I said "in my opinion". I can understand you not liking anime style or american style anime. But some of us do. Just cause you don't like the style don't say its bad.

Posted at 2:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

3! YOUR A BEEPING ART MAGOR! Of course you want everyone to get better at art. But your in school! He is trying to scrap by in a thing called the real world. Its outside of college. You might find it once your done with your education. In my opinion just classes and 8 hours of work a week is not as hard as having two jobs.

Uhh, so what if I'm an art major and so what if I'm in college? My point was that I can relate to the same amount of hours as him doing work/things that are time consuming, therefore it's not an excuse. And pardon me for not understanding, "The real world," because of course, college students have no what that's like. College is nothing to sneeze at. There are finals, exams, projects, and so on to keep up with while still getting money to pay for it. Two jobs don't give you homework and don't take money from people.

And of course I want people to improve. What the hell do you think comics are? Math problems? No, it's art and writing! Sign up for a review? Well, review we shall! Why bother signing up for a review at all if you don't want to improve on your art and writing? Is that not the entire point? You make no point.

Edit: And also, by no point, I also mean that I suggested he updated less. As in less time on the comic and more time doing what he needs to do. Change the update schedule to not update every day would help him wonders.

Posted at 3:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

taltamir, I am officially going to start ignoring you.
I am starting to think that you are not a mobties fan, but that you in fact hate mob ties and are trying to make it look bad by portraying all of its fans as morons.
Your arguments are so illogical and your failure to read either mob ties or our review and remember anything you saw is getting ridiculous!
If you really are a mob ties fan, stop typing! You are NOT doing yoru team any favours!

I am not going to feed your trolling any more.

Posted at 4:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

3! YOUR A BEEPING ART MAGOR! Of course you want everyone to get better at art. But your in school! He is trying to scrap by in a thing called the real world. Its outside of college. You might find it once your done with your education. In my opinion just classes and 8 hours of work a week is not as hard as having two jobs.
And pardon me for not understanding, "The real world," because of course, college students have no what that's like.

Your pardoned :3

But school and work are different is what I'm saying. One taxxes the mind one taxes the body. Though during finals and midterms all nighters tax both.

Posted at 5:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

I think the most important thing to realize from this discussion, is that I got a positive review from The Webcomic Review Comic on the web.

And that makes me awesome.

Posted at 5:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

This is going to be a long post, as this is something that I'm impassioned about. I apologize in advance for it's length.

Yikes…there certainly seems to be a large amount of personal attacks and trolling going on here. Anyway allow me to introduce myself, as this is the first time I've ever posted on the forums. I'm a long-time DD reader as well as a long-time Mob Ties fan. I was also a movie reviewer for my college newspaper for about 3 years, so I figure that I have something to say and, hopefully, I can say it well.

This is an impassioned plea to anyone who has read the review and is thus reading this.

In short, read the comic for yourself before deciding!

Allow me to explain what I mean by saying this. When it comes to movies, we all have excellent resources to turn to, to find out whether they are decent or not. We have critics, we have word of mouth and we have, my personal favorite, Rottentomatoes.com. For those who don't know what Rottentomatoes is, it's a site that gathers up a large amount of movie critic reviews on all movies and averages them out to a composite score. Movies that have around a 60 percent and above are considered "Fresh" and movies that are below that are considered "Rotten". With me so far?

Now, as a long-time critic myself, I think I can let you in on a dirty secret of the critic world.

Critiques are nothing but a dressed-up opinion.

I was a movie critic, as I said above, and there were plenty of times where I loved a movie that someone else hated and vice versa. Does my opinion count for any more then their own? I don't think so. The only difference between him and me was that I managed to sucker people into reading my own critique and even then, I was sure to let people know that this was just my own, personal, opinion.

Now let me explain why I brought up Rottentomatoes. It collects and collates reviews and shows people whether a movie has a largely positive or a largely negative assortment of reviews.

Now let me bring up a big Oscar winning movie…"The Dark Knight". I hope that everyone has heard of it and, for your own sake, that you've seen it as it is a FANTASTIC movie. Nearly everyone, in the critic world at least, agreed and it got a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes. What I'm trying to emphasize here is what that means is that 6% of a polled 272 professional reviewers thought it was not a decent movie.

So roughly 16 people thought that the movie was horrible. Surely any true fan could read up on other reviews, poll the internet, check with friends on what they thought of the movie and see that these nay-sayers are in a VERY distinct minority.

But what happens if a person who is considering watching this movie has no internet connection, doesn't live close to any friends to talk to and only has access to a newspaper that has one of the few negative reviews in it? This person, on that review alone, would miss out on a absolutely incredible movie.

This is the situation that we find ourselves in here.

There are very, very few reviewers on and of drunkduck. Thus there's no neutral 3rd party collecting every review every made about Mob Ties and assigning it a rating. Also, it's hard to find truly unbiased people to ask about a comic as, if their on the forums or comic's comments then, most likely, their going to enjoy the comic.

So, you ask, how can a person determine if a comic is moderately decent or not?

While some may disagree, this is my own thoughts on it. Drunkduck.com is a well-known entity and attracts, I would guess, several million readers.

Now, lets forget about the Top 10. Mob Ties has not left the Top 5 for months now and I have never seen it drop below the 10. What that means to me is that there are thousands upon thousands of people who read the comic and, presumably, enjoy it.

Going beyond that…there is a very, very big difference between web-comics like these and movies. People, and I include myself in this , are quite nervous about bad reviews about movies because if you go to see said movie your going to drop a chunk of cash on tickets and probably even more at the concession stand. That means, if the movie is bad, you've lost a pretty large chunk of cash for no reason.

This is not the case with Mob Ties or, in fact , any webcomic. You are not being forced to pay by the page, nor are you forced to drop a fortune on some nasty popcorn while reading. All of your snacks are provided to you, by you!

So, I say, take a chance and give Mob Ties a go! You can limit yourself to 20 pages if you'd like. Just I see lots of people who say they have read the first 2 pages and said they hated it. That's like seeing the first 10 minutes of a movie and walking out!

To bring up my previous point, this review is purely the author(s) opinion. You might read every page of Mob Ties and agree with them…or you might find that you enjoy something that quite alot of other people do too.

All I ask is that you give it a chance.

Posted at 5:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

Jekyll your argument seems to basically breka down to "mob ties is popular, there for it must be good."
Having a lot of fans does not make something good.
The Spice Girls had millions of fans!
Twilight has millions of fans!
The Eragorn books have millions of fans!
Achieving popularity is a not measure of quality and does not have any impact on the review we give it.

People who are arguing that mob ties represents Japanese culture-
No, it really really doesn't.
Other then a few cliche scenes the comic almost never gives the impression of being set in a foriegn land. Everyone acts thinks and lives exactly as they would if they were all American. If you substituted "Mafia boss" for Yakuza boss, the story would run just as well.

The only section of Japanese culture that seems to get much attention in this comic are-
1-The legal age to get married.
2-The uniforms worn by Japanese school girls for Gym.

Other then that, the Japanese setting is almost entirely unnecessary and mostly goes unnoticed. The fact there are no backgrounds doesn't help. This blank void could exist anywhere.

The art is not the worst I have ever seen, its true. But its still rubish!
Just becuase there are some examples that are worse does not make me forgive such a sloppy effort. And all white backgrounds are raelly unforgiveable.

The comics archive could be cut by a third if you got rid of all the filler, which gets beyond a joke. If you cant update taht much, change your schedule! Stop posting filler.

I find the authors assertion that mika is "practically an adult" to be very creepy. Does that imply he considers all 15 year olds to be "practically an adult"?

TFGM suggests that this sort of thing is common in Anime. I would say that if this is true, then this is evidence of something horribly wrong with anime!
The fact that lots of pople are doing it does NOT make something okay!
If anime was full of racism would it be okay for you to put that in your comics?

A couple of other poitns i should rebuke-
The plot is NOT confusing. I never said this.
The plot is nonsensical and stupid, but its not confusing.
In the same way that I dont find Battle Field Earth or Batman and Robin confusing.
Their plots make no sense at all, but they dont confuse me. I can follow their logic, even as I roll my eyes at how weak that logic is. The same applies to mob ties.

Also, I have to laugh at the idea that a proper review has to point out good and bad. If there is nothing good, then I am not going to make something up for the sake of balance!
Updating every day is not an achievement if the quality of updates is so tremendously low and a large portion of the updates are filler.

And Zaymac- Laugh it up while you can….but I will get that anthro award again! Just you watch!
(Though you do raise a good point. If you can get a good review, why not mobties? Maybe becasue your comic isn't about lusting after school girls? I dunno, but it could be a factor!)

Posted at 6:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

3! YOUR A BEEPING ART MAGOR! Of course you want everyone to get better at art. But your in school! He is trying to scrap by in a thing called the real world. Its outside of college. You might find it once your done with your education. In my opinion just classes and 8 hours of work a week is not as hard as having two jobs.

Uhh, so what if I'm an art major and so what if I'm in college? My point was that I can relate to the same amount of hours as him doing work/things that are time consuming, therefore it's not an excuse. And pardon me for not understanding, "The real world," because of course, college students have no what that's like. College is nothing to sneeze at. There are finals, exams, projects, and so on to keep up with while still getting money to pay for it. Two jobs don't give you homework and don't take money from people.

And of course I want people to improve. What the hell do you think comics are? Math problems? No, it's art and writing! Sign up for a review? Well, review we shall! Why bother signing up for a review at all if you don't want to improve on your art and writing? Is that not the entire point? You make no point.

Edit: And also, by no point, I also mean that I suggested he updated less. As in less time on the comic and more time doing what he needs to do. Change the update schedule to not update every day would help him wonders.

I agree with Dr luck on this one, regardless of what occupies your time anyone who is doing anything should want to improve at it, to suggest or want to do otherwise is beyond stupid.

Posted at 6:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

EVERYBODY GET ANGRY AND YELL AT EACH OTHER!!!
RRRRRAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Posted at 6:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

I think the most important thing to realize from this discussion, is that I got a positive review from The Webcomic Review Comic on the web.

And that makes me awesome.

Finally! Someone who's Talking about something with relevance!! I hope i can get up there with the people who got great reviews… it'd make me feel like a god for about 3 seconds, but three seconds of being a GOD lol

Posted at 7:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

BFFSatan- Can do!
RRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Posted at 9:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Posted at 9:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

RAGGGGLE FLAGGLE MARRRRRGARAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Posted at 9:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

TFGM: Not trying to cut you down. Just trying to see if I can show you where Dr. Luck is coming from.

This is an excellent resource for what, exactly, is a style and why having a good grasp of how a realistic person looks.
This is a respected site where many pros in various mediums can be found. Just root around in here and look at some of the tutorials and some of the WIP threads.

I also tried to find an image I had a long time ago but seemed to have lost it. Anyway, the image was of a flow chart that showed how an artist progressed. Basically it went from this is my style to I need to continue improving. This brings me to the point Dr. Luck was trying to make. Saying something is my style is one of the big pointers to someone not really trying hard. Even if you have plateaued, you can still try to improve, that's how you break a plateau. Hark and Kev have given Author Ninja one area he can improve in, backgrounds. Try drawing them, keep working at them, hammer away at you deficiencies and try to improve. What Author Ninja said was, effectively, that he found it hard to draw backgrounds so he doesn't and that's part of his style. See the first link, and see why I called bullshit. I have problems with foreshortening, organic shapes in perspective, anatomy, especially under the arms and the back, inking, using my tablet, and form. Hark and Kev have a point about the art, it hasn't improved, or at least not an appreciable amount. MT started before DD crashed in 05, so that's over five years and no improvement.

From about 2005 ish, probably closer to 2003 or 2004.

From a few months ago.

Are there problems in the more recent one? Oh definitely. I'd even point them out if I thought I could find them all. My point is that having a five year plateau is pretty ridiculous unless you're extremely close to the same level as the old masters, and I'm sure they were always trying to improve. No offense, but Mob Ties is nowhere close to being at the level of the old masters. My point and the point Dr. Luck was trying to make is that Author Ninja basically said he wasn't even trying and he wouldn't. That's what set her off. Me? It was that and the condescending tone that the last sentence seemed to be in. If you like Mob Ties, then by all means read it, and if Author Ninja enjoys making it, then he is more than welcome to do so. I'll happily not read it and accept the fact that people enjoy it, otherwise Mob Ties wouldn't be in the top ten.

Posted at 9:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

We seem to have hit a little bit of a nerve with Mob Ties author (understatement of the year)
and he has decided to express his thoughts on his own forum.
Why not go over and hear his side of the story?
While you are there, you can read him explaining about the manga he watches where a man turns into a hot woman and gets spanked till he/she has an orgasm that inspired the spanking scene in Mob Ties.
No really.

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Mob_Ties_Comic/index.php?showtopic=160

Also note that his rant, while very very funny, is prefixed with a lie.
The webcomic review comic has never and will never review comics at random.
We only review comics that ask for it.
Mob Ties' author requested to be reviewed, and he was.
Be careful what you wish for is the lesson there!

Posted at 10:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

Wow, I don't know what's sadder, the fact that uses a manga or an anime for all but two of his sources, or this guy's ego. I've just lost all the respect I had left for him after his post here.

Seriously, A good story will pull from multiple mediums and genres. He has two novels and a bunch of manga and anime as his inspiration.

And now that I find that this wasn't even a parody, I'm kinda disappointed with myself. To make the themes he mentioned work you have to have a good idea of where you're going and you can tell that he doesn't based on the comments from some of the later pages. Honestly, it makes a better parody than anything.

Posted at 10:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

Yeah, he might have been better off keeping some of his taste in pornographic animation to himself!

Posted at 10:07AM, Jul. 12, 2010

That scared me…. to a very large extent….must think of something awesome.
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peanut-butter cups