#adobsoncomic

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Nintendo-vember Level 3: Dobson and his Toxic Nintendo Nostalgia

Nostalgia can be toxic. Now bear in mind, I did not say that it IS toxic, but that it can be toxic. This assumption that because we have pleasant memories of something, that it was always good all the time. A desire to get that back, ignores all the good that’s come since then. As well as all the bad stuff that was there too. And it poisons you. Making you more suggestible to deception and your own greed. Who is to say that your own past is more important than someone else’s future? And because you want something that may not have been real at all, the farther the goal post gets. Because you can’t really reclaim it. So it just gets worse and worse and you get greedier and more desperate for it, because what you really want is never going to come. Until in the very end, you become the thing you hated in the first place. Lewis Lovhaug – March 2018, Infinite Crisis

Everything I did for this month so far, was going to lead directly into today’s , actually long in the works, post. Cause today we go over the comic, that as far as I see it, may actually be Dobson’s most (in)famous one out there. The one that painted the public’s opinion of him more so than anything he would ever do when starting to draw “political comics” under Trump. The one that defined him for all of deviantart and kiwifarms from 2010 onward. A comic that will always show up, whenever someone online even remotely talks about him. The one that I have seen more times than any other being used for threads on /co/ for Dobson. A comic that is neither about politics, feminism or even part of any of his comic series. A comic that is truly centered around the concept of toxic nostalgia, rather than whatever Andrew Dobson was going for and that fits perfectly to the theme of this month.

Ladies, gentlemen and inbetween… I give you, the Localization one.

Released in 2010, a time when Dobson was still trying (and failing) to sell himself more on the image of just being a quirky nerd and Nintendo fanboy whose work you should support because he only wants to make others happy, this became a comic that genuinely cemented further in the eyes of others, how much of a self-indulgent and extremely manchildish prick with dumb taste he really was.

How, some here may ask who are a bit too young? Well, let me give you context…

For starters, by the time Dobson released the comic, he had already quite a bit of a reputation online for being a prick to other nerds. His infamous “West vs East” comic which he created “as a joke” to vent about the popularity of anime in the mid to late 2000s had been published three years prior and had, in combination with a lot of derogative journal entries and posts on deviantart and other pages, earned him the ire of many people. In addition, his failed or outright aborted “original” content had painted him as a quitter, who despite wanting all the fame someone could muster online, was not willing to put the necessary work in it.

Dobson was, for a lack of a better word, a bully among nerds who tried to use his platform to shame people for being “nerdier” than him or enjoying stuff he didn’t, while also playing the victim card for people not interested in purchasing his product or calling him out on his hypocrisies and flaws in opinions.

In that regard, Dobson was pretty much ahead of the curve to some “woke” companies. Insulting your customer and then being surprised when no one wants to buy your shit.

The other thing to be aware of, has to do with the history and popularity of Nintendo characters at least pre-1995 in America.

For the few not quite aware and as a quick reminder to everyone: Videogames back in the 80s and very early 90s (like 1990-92) did on average not necessarily have what we can call “complex” lore when it came to videogame stories and characters. At least not to a degree as we would get later in the mid-90s and onwards. Aside of (J)RPGs most games were simply focused on moving a character from one end of a level to the next and the story as to why we even bothered for Megaman to fight the Robo Masters and who the heck Dr. Wily was, was printed in the manual on a small page.

And Mario and Link were no exception to that. Mostly because they also had only very few genuine main titles under their name. By 1989, The Legend of Zelda had only two NES titles under its name, while Mario had (if we don’t account for non-jump n’run games in which he was shoved into because of his status as Nintendo’s mascot) the three main Mario Bros games for the NES, one game for the Game Boy, Mario Bros and the two Donkey Kong titles.

Lacking quite a bit in characterization game wise, Nintendo of America in order to sell the stuff had to partly make the characters appeal to the audience via localization done through merchandise and non-game related products. And early fans of these characters would obviously crave for it.

Enter The Super Mario Bros Super Show, a cartoon series produced on order of Nintendo of America by Haim Saban and DIC Enterprises (the same ones who would give us “The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”, “Captain N” and “Inspector Gadget”) that ran from September 1989 till December of 1989. Using the first two Mario Bros games for the NES as basis for the character design of the show, the show itself had otherwise little to do with the games. Ignoring the live action segments, the actual animated episodes would have plots in which Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach (the later going by the then American official name of Princess Toadstool) traveled into whatever territory and had to deal with Bowser (or King Koopa as he was known) in a plot that had elements of some book, movie or anything else to parody.

In addition the show would later have Legend of Zelda based animated segments, of which 13 were produced. Those featured Link living in Hyrule castle with a more active “power woman” Princess Zelda and a fairy companion named Sprite and the two having to deal with Ganon, who was more of a dark wizard than a warrior based demon.

Overall, the shows were not really all that great compared to other stuff that existed cartoon wise, with some aspects of the characters feeling jarring nowadays. But honestly, for the sake of this article, I watched some of them and frankly they were not that terrible. They were typical 80s cartoon fanfare, which among other things included some animation errors and dumb slapstick. Especially the Mario segments were very slapstick heavy and Mario and Luigi were mostly characterized by Luigi being a bit of a scaredy cat even before the games did show him like that, Mario being rougher than you would think and dumb jokes about Luigi and Mario loving pasta and other Italian dishes. Because you know, Italians are only known for their cuisine!

The Zelda segments also had a bit of an “odd” character dynamic imagined for Zelda and Link. Zelda was a bit of a jerkass commanding bitch and Link could be a horndog trying to always flirt with her or trying to get a kiss.

There is one moment in an episode for example, where Zelda sits on Links bed after just having stopped some condor from stealing a piece of the Triforce guarded in Link’s room. Right then Link enters the room, sees the Princess sitting there and immediately says “smooching time” and tries to jump her to make out.

Minute 3:15 – 3:20 more or less Yeah, I think Pepe le Hyrulian would not really sell well with more modern audiences and sensitivities.

All that said, I can understand people having a soft spot for the show and enjoying it unironically. It is just that I think most of them would also be intelligent and understanding enough to see, that these shows did NOT give the ultimate interpretation of who or what these characters and their games were. Truth be told, even back then those things weren’t really acknowledged by Nintendo. Sure, Nintendo of America may have given the okay to do those things. But in Japan, global headquarters gave more or less a rat’s ass about it. They were busy making the NES and Gameboy profitable and worked on Mario Bros 3.

Truth be told, the most “characterization” Mario even got in Japan at the time was as followed: Shigeru Miyamoto thought he should be Italian and from New York. The former because he “looked” Italian to him (as a result of the mustache), the later because Donkey Kong, the game Mario originated from, was inspired in part by King Kong and King Kong is set in New York. Mario didn’t even have a name originally, having been known by Jumpman once. The origin of his Mario name is, that after Minoru Arakawa (president of Nintendo of America at the time) got into an argument with a real estate developer named Mario Segale, who Arakawa owned rent money, the game developers decided to name the character Mario. Which may or may not have been meant as a “take that” against Mr. Segale. But if so, it’s one that backfired.

But I digress. Point of that entire elongated history lesson is, that Mario and Link were in terms of characterization mostly defined to some 80s kids, by their depiction in the American cartoon, which had however very little in common with what the games were about. It was e.g. the cartoon who popularized heavily the entire idea of the brothers being from Brooklyn and having been transported via a magic pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom, while in the actual games, such a backstory was never really given. As evident by even the actual American instruction manuals for Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 I checked out online for this. Look them up.

And again, most people, even the kids, could accept that the animated show and what the games were, differed.

Then came the 90s, and with more titles under their belt, Nintendo of Japan decided to flesh out their mascots more to increase their popularity, resulting in Mario, Link and others getting “official” personalities as shown by their behavior in games and not just the inofficial ones via non-canon foreign material. And again, most kids and people were okay with that. After all, the games were what really mattered to them in the long run. Plus I think that as long as the games would simply “capture” the spirit of whatever they liked in the characters iand games n the first place, they would be okay with it.

But not Andrew Dobson.

Born in 1981 and likely not owning a NES up until the cartoon aired, he jumped onto the show as an eight year old and became a fan of it. In fact he enjoyed the Zelda cartoon so much, even as an adult he would draw fanart about it

Nothing at all wrong with that in my opinion. You like something, you have the ability to create fan content for it, go for it.

But as we more or less already established via the Howard and Nester comic, Dobson was as a person dead set that only the thing he liked or was first exposed to counts and not whatever others thought. Something that supposedly may explain why he genuine hates Bowser Jr and Yoshi, as evident by these tweets made a few years after the Localization comic was made.

And yeah sorry, but how can one hate Yoshi? Yoshi is an adorable pet dinosaur you can ride. You know how many kids would have loved someone like that in their life? Gues if Yoshi was less into vore and more into inflation, Dobson would have liked him more.

Speaking of the comic -and to finally get back to it- even Dobson admitted years later that the entire point of it is to simply piss all over Nintendo and that he was annoyed that his “beloved” American continuity got erased in favor of the “dirty Japanese” one. Despite the fact that the Japanese one is, as he himself admits, official.

And boy does he take the piss on it. To the point I want to call him R. Kelly.

So lets dissect how his stand is just the typicla strawman affair, unfunny and at times quite frankly outright homophobic, sexist, hypocritical and racist.

First, the art. As always, it is just “great” to see the degree in animation being fully utilized here. No background but skyblue, everyone looking more like a doodle, the use of the fillbucket, the director having 5 fingers on his hand in the second panel, but four in the fifth, getting the numbers of fingers on Mario completely wrong, missing out on Peach in the last panel and so on… brilliant! How come Disney would not hire someone who could draw like that! Oh right, because standards. Though those have gotten quite low over the years

Every single person working on this needs to be blacklisted.

But of course, the true brilliance comes through the writing. Starting with the strawman executive coming off as if what he does is something new. That he is the “evil soulless corporation” who doesn’t care for his employees and creations true personality and forces them to fit into some mold for the audience to enjoy. The “audience” and consumers also being more or less indirectly insulted by the way Dobson presents the entire affair, as he seemingly wants to blame “those damn kids” for ruining his favorite childhood characters.

But Dobson, I thought you loved corporations hating on fans.

Then we come to what the characters are supposedly changed into.

(warning, upload of the comic for the third time, so you cna always see what I refer to)

First, Mario being no longer from Brooklyn and that he is supposedly an Italian stereotype. As a non American, I have to ask: Why is it so important that Mario has to be from Brooklyn? I get the feeling the only reason people like Dobson or Moviebob care about it, is because they want to deep down culturally appropriate the character. Assure he is in some way of American culture and doesn’t belong to some “dirty, foreign country”, even if they have to go for a compromise and make him a dirty half blood Wop. I mean, I will say this: Yes, Mario has an accent that is stereotypical. And? I take a stereotypical accent and being otherwise a determined but friendly everyday hero over him being stereotypically obsessed with pasta and no personality conveyed through his actions aside of being a bit mean and bossy to his brother, as was the case in that dang cartoon.

The thing here is, Dobson was genuinely convinced that Mario’s portrayal as given by Charles Martinet, Mario’s VA from the early 90s up until August of 2023, wasn’t just stereotypical, but also racist, harmful and culturally insensitive. Something he believed even back in 2017 and resulted in a minor twitter meltdown

Look, I will say this here: Yes, Martinet’s voice for Mario is kinda stereotypical. And I did my research. Unlike Martinet, Lou Albano, the original voice of Mario in the Mario Bros Super Show, was actually of Italian heritage. Born in 1933 in Rome, having immigrated to the USA shortly after he got baptized in the Vatican (you can’t get more Italian than that!), he certainly was more authentically Italian than Martinet, who was born in California. Heck, Martinet’s father is actually French and he spend more time in France in his youth than in America or Italy. The story of how Martinet got his gig as Mario is also well known and painted by a rather stereotypical joke involving Italian food.

But to paraphrase the twitter user Dobson argued with, I think that all things considered, Martinet gave Mario and all the other characters he voiced over the years just a certain warmth and fun to their personality with the way he delivered his lines, that he managed to convey and define the cartoonish true nature of Mario and Co for many generations to come. And even now that he has been retired from the role, he is still a name recognized for the character. A character no one, not even freaking nationalistic Italians, seem to have a problem with. So, mangia un cazzo, Dobson. You sound just like the assholes who tried to get rid of Speedy Gonzales and in doing so pissed off all of Mexico.

Next the way he talks about Peach. Okay first, the Popeye arms are again just something from the cartoons. Or at least he believes it cause…. Well

Does that look like Popeye arms?

Second, he is essentially saying that Princess Peach, unlike the cartoon version, is a bimbo. Why, because she is blonde and you have some sort of deep seated hatred for blond people? Also, Peach hasn’t fought with Mario together in really any NES videogame either, Dobson. Oh what, Mario Bros 2? Aka the reskinned version of Doki Doki Panic? The way he talks here about Princess Peach is just utterly sexist, as he essentially devalues Peach as a character, just because she plays a damsel in distress often times. Which doesn’t even necessarily mean, that she isn’t a badass in her own way, even in that role. I mean, she is still the sovereign ruler of an entire nation and in Super Princess Peach -which seems to be the game he references when it comes to her being “over emotionally”- she saves the day all on her own. Sure, she is emotional in the game, but the entire premise of the game is centered around everyone’s emotions going haywire along Vibe Island, including the villains. Bet Dobson hasn’t even played the game back in 2006 and just went off on some shitty rumor. Not to forget that this statement is utterly false. Peach has also been a great supporting character and fighter in games such as Super Mario RPG and Super Paper Mario, which were released BEFORE that comic. And nowadays she is also known as a great character in stuff like the Mario + Rabbids games plus she will get her own upcoming Princess Peach: Showtime game for the Switch. Lastly, let us not forget every game where, even if she played a damsel, was still important to the plot by defying the villain as best as she could. Not to forget the current movie, in which she still kicked ass while going out all in pink.

So, after he has been racist towards Italians indirectly as well as sexist towards women embracing their brand feminity (boy, don’t want to know how 2011 Dobson would have then reacted to the Barbie movie of 2023), let Dobson be judgmental about anime fangirls and also rather homophobic, by the way how he tries to tear down “modern” Link.

There are four things I hate the most about the Link panel, which make it frankly in my eyes the one where Dobson’s hatred and own nastiness really shine through.

First, the accusation that the “changes” to Link’s design past “Link’s Awakening” can be attributed to anime fangirls. Showing both his true hatred for women when they don’t fall in line with his views and his stuck up shitty opinion about anime fans and combining it with latent misogyny. Look, I have seen thirst anime fangirls myself a lot over my lifetime. But they were not the demographic to “ruin” Link. If anything, I think that the popularity of Cloud Strife in general with others may have slightly influenced Link’s design for Ocarina of Time. Which in itself also had been in development at least since spring of 1996, till its release in November of 1998. And even then, that is a stretch I came up with, cause in my opinion someone in the development team likely just thought “Hey, what if we move on from the more cartoony look of the late 80s and early 90s and try some “darker” fantasy elements, without going full Berserk?” And that is how we got Link in that game. Because of some developers trying to appeal design wise to a general audience, not just a random group of made up strawmen. You want to see games pandering to actual Yaoi fangirls aesthetically? Play Enzai or Twisted Wonderland.

Second, again his hatred towards blond people. I really would like to know where that comes from, because I doubt it was only related to some random bully in school being blond.

Third, the way he uses the word effeminate and describes post Ocarina of Time Link essentially as “nonthreatening”.

For starters, considering Link rams his sword into Ganon’s skull in Ocarina of Time and slashes away at many of his enemies, which is way more threatening and violent than just poking them with a stick in 2D overhead view, I wouldn’t really consider him “non threatening”. I like to call him and many of his future incarnations, badass as fuck. Even the cartoonish, childlike Link from the Wind Waker continuity, who didn’t just stab Ganon in the head, but put his sword in there for good. It also is kinda laughable how Dobson uses the word “non threatening” in a negative manner, seeing how over the years ever since he sucked off Steven Universe, he would whine on twitter and other social plattforms again and again how males in media are always resolving conflict only via violence and are not in tune with their emotions. In other words, he once considered being more or less pacifistic a negative trait.

Also, “effeminate”? Okay first, Link looks like this in Ocarina of Time…

What exactly looks “effeminate” about male Link here, or at least let’s say more “effeminate” than for example in a character like this?

Second, we all know that if Link all off sudden looked more like Guts from Berserk or the protagonist of DarkSoul (you know, more “manly”), Dobson would throw enough of a hissy fit, he would likely come back from his sabbath and whine how Nintendo is embracing toxic masculine traits in his characters. All while also blaming PS3 games for some reason for that.

Third, how exactly would Dobson define effeminate here? I mean, the term is already defined as being derogatory, the most common definition I found by Merriam-Webter online being as followed

Effeminate: having feminine qualities untypical of a man : not manly in appearance or manner

Effeminate: marked by an unbecoming delicacy or overrefinement

So, Andrew “I hate all men” Dobson, has a problem with a character not being “typical” or stereotypical manly male? The same guy who praised the She-Ra reboot for its portrayal of Bow and fucking worships that fat fuck below as one of the best protagonists in a cartoon of the last decade…

Has actually deep down a problem with people embracing more female interests, qualities or just looking more feminine in appearance, even though the later may not be by choice but rather genetics? All while also having the audacity to say then this years later?

I find this just genuinely hate- and hurtful. Not just a simple complaint about a design choice regarding his supposed favorite fantasy game hero, but a “deep cut” towards people who just enjoy things not considered “stereotypically manly” or may feel not comfortable falling in line with gender expectations. I mean, what? Is a man now supposedly not manly in Dobson’s eyes because they like musicals, sweets are capable of showing empathy and other emotions or like to dress up in certain ways or take care of their appearance?

It is just disgusting to me, because I know people, both male and female, who had to deal with bullying and name calling a lot simple because they didn’t quite fall in line with expectations by others or struggle with their own identity partly because of expectations vs reality. And as evident by THIS comment TheHypocrisyofAndrewDobson received once it isn’t just “a joke” to people genuinely affected by that sort of mentality. And again, this derogatory use of the world and complaint towards “modern” Link comes from someone who years later would whine about toxic masculinity, put women on pedestals even if they are abusive, likely jerked it off to Link in Gerudo gear following Breath of the Wild and in the biggest ironic “twist”, loves the cartoon incarnation of Link, whose catchphrase is “Excuse me, Princess” and needs a restraining order as much as Warner Bros gave Pepe lePew.

And to finish this panel off (yes, we are still not at Samus), of course the next complain is how Zelda and Link are “no longer love interests” … now I apologize in advance towards any moderate shipper out here, but I am going full snarker mode now for this part. Okay?

Dobson… the fact that you cared so much about shipping two fictional characters in a series of children games, for a console primarily played by kids, while you were being in your 20s and above is pathetic as shit. I know that you have no one in life who genuinely loves you, because among other things you are incapable of either feeling or identifying true love while also being a selfish little shit, but to be so thirsty for affection that you project that need on some pieces of data or lines of color, makes you a bigger loser in my book than any republican who lost the primary against Donald Trump in 2015. The fact that you look at a piece of fiction and your immediate thought is “oohh, these two characters together would look very cute hugging, kissing and doing things I touch myself to at night”, while things such as plot progression and character development likely play second, third or fourth fiddle, only confirms to me that shippers (at least the once acting like you in that regard and other fields) are a fucking blight on any fandom and the world at large.

Now with that shit vented, I once again apologize for going that far, even for “comedic purpose” towards the people who actually can recognize when they go just a bit too far with shipping. But this isn’t just annoying in regard to this comic, it is annoying with Dobson in general. If you are even remotely aware of how he treats the LGBT subject for real as well as what he truly enjoys about Legend of Korra and Miraculous Ladybug, you know he is thirstier than someone stranded in the Gobi desert. Just look at his pic of Zelda and Linkle he made in honour of Hyrule Warriors.

I can kinda taste his urge to touch himself there.

To me it is just dumb to define any story out there and the characters in it by simply “are they getting together or not” because romance to me in storytelling is an additional flavor, not the main ingredient. It is one reason I really do not like Miraculous Ladybug for example. And the fact that Dobson seems to define Legend of Zelda a lot as a franchise by the “shipping potential” of Link and Zelda as implied by that panel, irks me in all the wrong ways.

I mean, for the most part the appeal of the Zelda games isn’t the “romance” between the two, it is traversing the land of Hyrule and saving it from evil while going on a big adventure. And let us be real here, Link and Zelda weren’t really an item pre-Ocarina of Time either. In the NES and SNES games they were essentially strangers to each other, with one filling the role of damsel in distress even a bit harder than Peach did. After all, Peach may be a princess, but she actually rules her kingdom. Zelda on the other hand is daddy’s little girl in those and other games post 1998. And the relationship they had in the cartoon, the one Dobson likes to call a “may they, won’t they” thing is in my opinion not cute, but toxic. She is a demanding bitch that calls him names at times, he is a horndog who needs a lecture by Sexual Harassment Panda and none of them improves character wise over the show.

What a misogynistic piece of shit

There is a reason I consider Tetra, Zelda from Skyward Sword and the “Wild” Zelda the better interests, because not only do Link and Zelda here have better chemistry and are both nicer and more respectful to each other in a manner, they also support each other in very heroic ways. I mean, Zelda in Tears of the Kingdom willingly sacrificed her own conscious just so Link can have a shot at defeating Ganon and saving Hyrule in the future, while Link wants to do everything to save his friend. If that isn’t impactful, tragic and has so much romantic potential, I don’t know what else would count.

But hey, supposedly the cartoon is better. And the 365 Days Trilogy is a great love story with no unfortunate implications involving sexual relationships and abuse. *snark*

And then it is Samus turn. And I really have to wonder, if Dobson ever even played a Metroid Game before Other M anyway, as he hates games with scary elements and FPS.

Aside of once again whining about changing the hair color (Dobson seems to be something of a reverse Aryan enthusiast), he acts as if the addition of the Zero Suit in Metroid was a cardinal sin and “sexist crap”, to entice more men to playing her game.

Okay… for starters, the Metroid games were already enjoyed by a huge male demographic long before that or before even Metroid Prime. Samus wasn’t a “played by females thirsty for representation” only character, as that comic seems to imply. She was considered a female badass hero from the moment she first appeared and her design is deliberately inspired by Ripley from Alien. And skimpy? Again, Dobson doesn’t seem to know what certain words mean. Skimpy would be when the outfit would show more off her skin or was barely there. This is a skintight jumpsuit, that also has a function in the game as a less movement restricting suit compared to Samus armor. Heck, just watch this video, that guy gives some decent explanation on the suit itself.

And yeah, I can agree that in certain cutscenes more so than the actual game, it does put quite a bit of emphasize on Samus “attributes” so to speak. But are we really trying to insinuate that the Zero Jumpsuit is more sexist than the character stripping off to her underwear as was the bonus ending content of the initial Metroid games?

And if the issue is that the skinsuit makes Samus more “sexy” and that Dobson does not want to see sexy characters in Nintendo games…

He should reevaluate the fact that he enjoyed the above later.

There is also this little tweet I found after the fact, Dosbon would make later in 2015, where he actually more or less confirms the idea, that he thinks the Japanese only care for Samus in a “sexy skintight” manner, by making this dumbass “joke” comparison

Ignoring the fact btw, that the pic on the left was drawn by Samus original designer Hiroji Kiyotake. Again, Dobson trying to discredit the Japanese. And don't get me even started that he enjoys Other M or takes more offense to the shoedesign of Samus in Smash Bros than anything

Finally, and to wrap this thing up, we reach the final panel, showing the executive declaring that the “old” stuff shall from now on be brushed off like Dobson tried to brush off his fetish artist days, all while the “new and improved, but truly despicable” pretenders of his favorite childhood heroes are behind him. Mario lobotomized to say MAMA MIA while his eyes look like he is possessed by the retardation of Talus, Link being a “silly girl who makes silly movements with her hands and likely just wants to hang out with cute boys”, while Samus looks pissed and just wishes she was in something less degrading for her than this comic. Like Other M.

Honestly, this comic just stinks of loser entitlement and as stated prior, toxic nostalgia. Dobson has never really been a creator of decent stuff, only a consumer who demands the next product as soon as he hungers for it and will be utterly judgemental to petty and spiteful degrees, when he doesn’t get what he wants or suddenly thinks he sees something “problematic” to it. And to him, already the fact that stylistic choices and aesthetics changed over time, a natural progression of things if you ask me, is “problematic” in his eyes. Dobson would have rather had for Zelda, Link, Mario, Samus and Co to be undefined postholders he could have projected himself on, or outdated 80s stereotypes and toxic men, because that is the first thing he was ever exposed to when it came to those characters. Why not go even further, Dobson? Erase the Switch, the Wii and any other game console post 1989 from history, so that gaming itself never evolves past the 8-Bit era. Let’s destroy Pokemon, God of War, Kirby, Sonic and many other franchises and characters, because they are not the “true heroes of the Golden Age of gaming”. Let’s see how you will like that, when they come for your beloved Skyrim.

Bottom line, Dobson is a nostalgic pig, stuck in a past he looks at through rose tainted, grease covered glasses and this comic more than anything written before and after that embodies the mentality quite as well. And even though he tried to play it off as a joke, anyone with half a brain saw through what it was really about. And they made Dobson know, partly through less words than I used here, why they thought his opinion and by extension he, sucked.

Dobson wasn’t just playing the overzealous Nintendo fan for shit and giggles. He was, this overzealous, almost destructive and utterly disrespectful fan, who believed in the superiority of his favorite childhood toy over the consoles of others, even if that included pissing off his own “kin” or accussing Nintendo of being problematic dirty foreigners. Just look at anything he would type in regard of Super Smash Bros for the Switch, like how pissed he was at the fact he had to put effort into getting his favorite character to play as. Essentially insinuating, the game and people enjoying it were crap, just because he was biased towards fighting games to begin with. And look, being critical of aspects of a game, is one thing. But some of the things Dobson found to complain about? Pathetic, childish and utterly irrelevant in the bigger picture of anything

I want to punch him in the throat for this voice alone...

And if you think Dobson being an opinionated Nintendo fanboy is cringe, wait till we get to him being an opinionated PS3 hater.

But before that, I want to tear at least one of his shitty Zelda opinions a new one…

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Elf on the shelf and pedo on the net

Merry Christmas/Holidays, everyone!

So I think you know what this post is going to be about. The one comic, that has become a christmas tradition at hypocrisy's blog.

Released mere days before Christmas of 2016 -which Dobson likely considered ruined, because it was Trumps first Christmas after he won the election 2016- the comic shows two male stripers, with one pondering that the reason he joined the profession, may be related to some rather “unsavoury” kinks he developed as a result of a Christmas tradition.

Now being from Europe, I myself didn’t even know of the “Elf on the Shelf” until I saw this comic. Though a quick google search made me realize, why that was: The entire idea of putting an elf doll on the shelf to “watch over the kid” wasn’t even a thing until a children book came out in 2004, that promoted the idea. The real take off of the Elf being around the first half of the 2010s and since then having managed to creep its way into the popcultural subconscious.

Yeah, if you can’t tell, I am not really a fan of that thing, based on the designs I saw. Also the idea of “surveilling” your children to see if they are naughty or nice feels rather creepy. And I grew up in a culture that accepts the idea of good old Saint Nicolas and his henchman Rudolph/Krampus putting the bad ones into their place via spanking or worse.

However, Dobson managed to make the concept even creepier by virtue of relating it to a masturbation punchline. Which in turn makes you just ponder, what the heck is wrong with Dobson?

So, let us just dissect this thing quick, before it sours any positive Christmas mood.

First, Dobson supposedly did the comic, because in his opinion the “Elf on the Shelf” sends a strange message to kids…

And to be fair, a lot of kids seemingly hate the creepy little doll and “experts” have called it out at being psychologically damaging. Going so far as to say the toy “normalizes” the concept of constant surveillance and that it would be okay. Which personally I think is a bit of a stretch, but not entirely inaccurate also. So making fun of the concept of the doll, totally okay with me. Heck, Teen Titans Go did an entire episode mocking the thing.

But Dobson’s attempt of making fun of it, just crosses into genuine creeper territory, for one simple reason: Sexualization of minors.

Look, I don’t believe Dobson is a pedophile -though his poor choice of wordings on twitter posts and certain aspects of art pieces can give the impression- and the situation Dobson shows in the comic is not explicitly pornographic. After all, we don’t see the kid like buttass naked pumping the bike pump while the elf stares. I now give you five minutes to hopefully delete that mental image with enough eggnog at your disposal.

But it still turns “sexual”…

An implication that is not very subtle for a couple of reasons.

First, the person asked and thinking back to the Christmas tradition is a male stripper. A job in the sex works. By the way, respect for people in that job (independent of the sex) for being able to work without feeling objectified (or too much) and managing to keep a decent body shape. Hope also for your safety out there.

Which I am not just saying because Dobson incidentally tries to mock male strippers in the comic in my opinion. After all, we all know Dobson hates men. And when men aren’t some MRA morons or fat misanthropic nerds, they can’t be anything but dumb male himbos or potentially depraved homosexuals who got kinky by perverting a Christmas children tradition.

Yeah, I am stretching here a bit, but we are talking about Dobson. The guy was always more than open to the idea of making gay men the butt of some joke in Alex ze Pirate.

Am I really supposed to believe he changed that attitude?

But back to the comic. The second reason why obvious the entire thing has sexual undertones as punchline… just look at that face

That is the face of someone masturbating under the blanket. The sultry eyes, the blush on his face, one hand under the cover while the other is above, bitting his lip… if that thing were animated, I bet the kid would be moaning and I could report Dobson to some authority.

And yeah, that is really what the entire creepiness of the comic boils down too. The face of the kid that leaves no other room for interpretation except “a sex pun, based on a “Christmas tradition” targeted at really small kids. With the final panel feeling like Dobson likely had a good laugh at his “joke”, thinking others would react the same.

Well, the reaction doesn’t seem to have been what Dobson hoped for, cause he would later release the following tweet.

Two things to that: First, I think the reason people were “confused” Dobson (confused likely means here, asked him if he is a pedo), was that they kinda didn’t want to think you were going into that “sexualized” territory because that would raise more red flags than you obsessing over KorraSami. And would have also felt rather out of character for you, cause of how prudish you become at the subject of sexualization.

Second, accusing others of lacking imagination and that therefore little things like that comic stump them. Dobbitch, I have read every major comic you ever made, if anyone lacks imagination, it is you. Your mental capacity for imagining stuff is lower than of a braindead person in a coma. And the fact that a self declared “child friendly” webartist focuses most of the time on the punchline “character X is thirsty”…

even if the character in question is underaged, makes me think you are enjoying Belgian porn on the sideline.

Overall, the comic is just creepy. But not in the way that it makes the doll itself creepy and therefore the butt of the joke. Rather it makes the artist behind the comic creepy, because he tries to imagine a scenario where that thing causes someone to spring their first boner.

The sad thing being, Dobson could have easily made the comic creepier and funnier at the same time, fi he just had put the focus of the comic on the puppet and not the kid. For example, of all the things in the world, I think Family Guy could make the joke of a creepy elf puppet work, if it played out like that: Lois puts an elf on the shelf for every kid in the house, including Chris.

Chris goes to bed, camera focuses on him, turning around, the puppet is cut off from you.

Chris says “good night”  to the elf.

Zoom out to show the shelf, now it is Herbert the creepy neighbour in an elf costume on the shelf saying “Night, Chris”

There. Now if you excuse me, I need to take a shower. Not necessarily from reviewing that comic, but because I actually wrote out a Family Guy joke.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Level 1: Let's-a-go easy with some illuminated Mario!

What I want to explore at least partly over the course of Nintendo-vember is the fact, that Dobson was biased with a capital b when it came to videogames and Nintendo. To be more specific, Dobson not only hated people who played anything but Nintendo, acting like PS3 users are the scum of the earth (which we can see examples of a lot near the end of the month), but he was also very opinionated what counts as “the true and honest” depictions of his favorite Nintendo characters.

Again, something more explored down the line soon, but to give at least one example for how even the slightest “deviation” from Dobson’s own interpretation can result in him getting pissed, only for things to backfire on him in some sense (partly a cosmic one) let me turn back time a bit to the November of 2017.

Almost 6 years ago, it was announced that Illumination, the studio behind the Despicable Me movies and some really shitty Dr. Seuss based works, would head the animation work on Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros movie. And people were pissed.

Many of them believing that the studio would ruin their favorite videogame character and produce something that was of great disservice to him. And that was something people claimed, before even the voice cast was announced and everyone had a mental breakdown over Chris Pratt voicing Mario.

For your sanity though, don't click on the vidoe of that fat slob from Boston who is more of a disservice to animation than Live Action Disney is currently

Now to be fair, I am myself aware of the quality of Illumination up until the Mario movie came out. The Despicable Me and Minions movies, plus Secret Life of Pets, having been the most successful endeavors of the company, while also creating some rather annoying, though in my opinion funny cartoon slapstick characters. But honestly, I never thought that Illumination doing the Mario movie, could possibly be the worst thing to ever happen. At the very least, even if the company had fucked up royally with Dr. Seuss related content, they actually have some understanding of cartoon slapstick in their work and can in my opinion create some very colorful movies. And let us be real here, Super Mario has never been the most “adult” or deep franchise on the planet. So as long as Nintendo would keep them on the leash (which they did in the end) I doubted the movie would be utter shit. I at least did not expect it to be the Teen Titans Go of Nintendo, dumb like Boss Baby or unfocused and insulting like Wonder Park.

And lo and behold, the movie came out and minor things aside (like using Take on me as a pop song in the background at one moment) it captured the essence of Mario, was very colorful and a smash hit. To the point it was up until Barbie came along still the most successful movie of 2023 and is the third highest crossing animated movie of all time. With the place actually being the second, if the Lion King remake from 2019 wouldn’t be technically considered animated. Heck, you could actually call it the most succesful animated movie of all time currently, if you also decide to look at the list in such a way, that "sequels"/continuations ofalready established IPs don't count.

What I am trying to say is, in hindsight, many people should have just simply tried to be calm and see where things were heading.Give Illumination the benefit of the doubt. Particularly if they decided to first think about what was likely going to happen and analyze the pro and cons of Illumination doing the movie.

But fuck using your brain when your name is Andrew Dobson.

Dobson took genuine offense to the idea of Illumination doing the movie and as such made a “mock art” of what Mario would likely look in their art style.

There was just a tinsy winsy problem with it. The artwork in itself….

Turned out to be better looking, than most things Dobson did at the time.

No, seriously. Considering the lack of a decent art output at the time aside of shitting on nerds via SYAC strips, this, for what is obviously meant to take the piss out on Illumination’s art style reserved for the Minions, actually looks rather decent. Sure, Mario looks like a tic tac, but for a “quick” sketch, it looks nice. Mario looks -unlike Dobbear in 95% of the strips- actually happy by the way he smiles as well as very cartoonish. And considering that the blood and soul of Mario is kinda in the cartoonish nature of the game series -as evident by how ridiculously Mario Wonder is currently- Dobson in my opinion captured here the soul of Mario better than he did in other pics he did way back in the earlier 2000s.

Though to be fair, these pics look decent enough and at least Dobson was experimenting with different styles back then. Perhaps his cartoonish style would have worked best with Nintendo, if he refined it just right.

Which you know, kinda defeats the “purpose” of the picture if you ask me. I mean, it is obvious Dobson just did it to vent and piss on the fact that a company he considered “inferior” to other animation studios, would bring his favorite videogame character on the big screen for the first time since that Bob Hoskins movie. But if he wanted to mock the idea, he failed. Simply because in his sketch he doesn’t really “highlight” why Illumination being behind Mario would be bad. Not helped by the fact Dobson lacked giving more context why in his opinion that was a bad idea. And the few posts he did, painted him just as hating Charles Martinet and believing Charles would be the main voice of the characters in the movie

An as stated earlier, in hindsight, any “criticism” or fear Dobson might have had, proved in my opinion invalid in the end. The movie was not only a success, but it also paid tribute to his “precious” Mario is from Brooklyn background.

Frankly, the only thing I can see in the pic I would criticize is that Dobson a) gave Mario four fingers despite the fact he should know by now he has five (though that may be a cartoony jab at the Minions. Though even that jab is half assed, cause if he wanted to emulate their design, he should have given Mario three instead of four digits) and b) Mario being likely completely bald under that cap. The later just doesn’t fit entirely. Which, considering the Minions are mostly bald, may have been the intention by Dobson, to create an uncanny effect. Unfortunately, the rest of the artwork balances it out mostly, so on average the sketch ends up being visually more pleasing than anything.

Honestly though, the picture’s existence does highlight one thing more than anything: That Dobson would rather create something out of spite and hatred, rather than a genuine sense of enjoyment. That and if Ilumination being announced as a company to animate the movie, I wonder how he reacted in light of the casting or other Mario related news. Like can you imagine how livid he must have been when Mario+Rabbids by Ubisoft was announced and became popular?

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Meinu Henshu Dobson! The abandoned magical girl thing....

When it comes to his “original” work, such as Formera, Alex ze Pirate, Percy Phillips etc. I think that Dobson always had these two (of many) main flaws work against him.

His ideas were too generic for his own good. I am not necessarily against a “generic” idea for a story, as we live in a time where almost every tale has been told countless times or the basics and tropes of certain genres are more than well known to a lot of us. Sonic Frontiers e.g. has been called by some a “Breath of the Wild” knock off with typical Sonic game plot elements, but that doesn’t change the fact it was (at least to me) a lot of fun.

However, there is a thing as being “too generic”, which to me is when your story not only follows in the footstep of something already well known, but lacks even more personality than you would think at first. The reason why something like that can happen, is because the creator may not spend enough time to establish elements of their work, that can help make certain characters, the basic plot etc. stand out a bit. Such as personality traits, the goals of the main characters, the rules by which the world functions. And this in turn happens often, because past an initial pitch idea, they do not really flesh things out, thinking they can figure more details out down the line. In Dobson’s work this shows to me e.g. a lot in Formera, where the main character meets along the line a discount hippie version of Muten Roshi that does not play any relevance past his 5-6 pages of screentime, the leads lack personality, the idea feels a lot like a proto-Isekai (preteen magically transported to another realm) from the time BEFORE the genre became more well known in the 2010s and we don’t even get a lot of story behind the world of Formera itself. Or Percy Phillips, who really is just a knock off version of the worst traits people associated with Sherlock Holmes past 1918 and who even compares his own archenemy straight to Moriarity. Pretty much all of these works lacked a certain “spark” of individuality and were not fleshed out enough when he began to work on them. And I am not saying, that if you want to create a story, you need to know every miniscule detail already two days after you had the initial idea. Many great stories can develop some of their greatest moments along the way. But you need to have some basic concept for things as themes, main characters and tone kinda in your mind, while also not being afraid to flesh things out.

Dobson never really went through with a lot of his stuff As much as I hate a badly told story and I want certain shows/comics/books/whatever just to end, I hate the idea of an “abrupt” ending even more. Even if a story is undoubtedly shit, I kinda want to see its’ creator manage to at least bring it to a proper end story wise, instead of someone pulling the plug and leaving it at whatever point it was by then without resolving its main plot or giving answers to certain things in them. So you shouldn’t be surprised, that Dobson’s “storydriven” comics really annoy me, seeing how a lot of them were just unceremoniously put into never ending hiatus by him. Simply because they did not turn into hits that made him instantly famous online. A behavior, that to me always signified just how much Dobson cared more about himself, than the actual work and characters he created.

Because of these flaws, whenever Dobson hinted on the idea that he was going to publish something new or that he had something in mind he wanted to try out, me and many other people just rolled our eyes, knowing that it won’t likely come ever out. Or that if it did, it would be more generic than white bread with vegan butter and be over after four weeks of no one caring much for it online.

And yet, Dobson managed to surprise me and other people in 2018 when he posted that thing, showing how he was even beyond the point of having only “generic” ideas.

This post to me just recks of desperation to stay relevant, while also showing how little he understands the very thing he wants to talk about.

I will admit, I am not very familiar with the magical girl genre overall. Part of it is, because there is so much to it and that it had been in something of a flux when it comes to things such as tone and intend over the last 15+ years alone.

However, I do know the following: The magical girl genre is essentially an invention of the 20th century, that has its roots likely in the 50s and 60s. At least Osamu Tezuka’s “Princess Knight” and things like the 60s western tv show “Bewitched” seemed to have quite a bit of an impact in the 60s and 70s for people in Japan to not only create stories with female characters in the lead, but also give them magic powers to fight bad guys. Even back then the genre being in a steady flux, as some shows were selling themselves of their rather cutesy design for the heroins, had the main character just have silly but fun adventures, while others focused more on action to also attract boys, at times even creating rather “raunchy” content for the time being. Examples of all of that would be shows like Magical Princess Minky Momo, Majokko Meg-Chan and Cutey Honey.

However, it wasn’t until the first anime adaptation of Sailor Moon hit the airwaves in 1992, that the Magical Girl genre became a worldwide phenomenon.

Now to be fair, Sailor Moon did not invent all common tropes already associated with the genre (such as magical sidekicks, characters, aging up when turning into their hero personas, tomboyish designs, action, the power of friendship or love motivating others to stop the bad guys…) but it did popularize the “monster of the week” structure, the concept of a team of heroines fighting together instead of just one lead character, the increasing escalation of conflict within a specific story arc and so on for a general audience. Making the anime a smash hit, that others decided to copy. Some of them doing so successfully while also establishing their own identity along the way (such as the Pretty Cure franchise), while others… not so much.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is total GARBAGE!

Overall, the magical genre has been separated in 4 major camps as of now: a. the classical genre of cute girls fighting against evil and having silly adventures or fighting the monster of the week, mostly functioning as coming of age stories (such as Card Captor Sakura)

b. The more action oriented approach as codified by something like Pretty Cure and in the west would e.g. be determined by She-Ra or Ladybug to some degree

c. The “parody”, often times playing with expectations for comedic results (Magical Girl Ore)

d. The “deconstruction” like “Magica Madoka”. Shows and stories that look at the otherwise positively presented concept of a magical girl story and will turn it around by focusing on existential horror, the grim reality of young girls and kids forced to fight against evil or are just plain violent shlock that tries to present itself as “more meaningful” than it actually is. And btw, I do not hate darker takes on rather light subjects, but I just think the medium of anime had been kinda overrun by it in the last 10 years.

Again, I myself am not really following the genre that much. I watched Sailor Moon when I was younger, I heard of some of those deconstructions over the years (but have no intend of really watching them) and frankly, I may give PrettyCure a bit of a second try after watching at least a cute anniversary movie of the show recently at a convention.

But even if it is not entirely my cup of tea, I do get to some degree how they work. What makes them popular with the audience, the tones that work and don’t, what tropes to expect from a certain show at times depending on which camp it is from etc.

As such, I also get that if you want to make a story within the genre, you need to have a bit more in mind to it than just “It’s about magical girls fighting evil”

Cause there are a shitton of ways how this can be done.

It is like saying “I want to make an American like superhero story”, ignoring the fact that this does not specify enough what you are aiming for. Like, do you want it to be in tone more like a golden age comic, a child friendly cartoon or a modern comic? Is your main character going to have inherit superpowers or gain them? Does he or she even have powers or are they relying on gadgets? Are their villains normal people, superpowered freaks or cosmic horrors? What the heck do you want to go for!

This is a question, that is more than justified in this post.

Cause here is the deal: aside of it having a talking animal companion, transformation sequences and a school setting to it (which in itself is a mild surprise, considering Dobson’s hatred for institutions of education) he has literally not thought about anything. And even what he has isn’t just barebones, it is bone scratches.

“My story shall be set in a school”. Great. What kind of school? Elementary? High School? College? Waldorf School? Private Academy? Is the main character supposed to be an actress going to a film school and uses her education and acting skills to at times trick the monsters during fights?

Talking animal companion… so, regular animal that gets the power to talk via magic by accident like Spike the Dog in the Equestria Girls specials, or was it already born with the ability?

But it is the part where he asks the people reading that post “but what about weapons, magical items, vilains etc.?” that really drives me nuts, even just as some idiot who at times pitches ideas for fanfictions. Because this right there? This is what Dobson, as the creator of the story, should truly come up with. The “meat” on the bone” so to speak. The thing separating his work from the rest.

The reason I say that, is the following: To me, every story is build on the following “pillars”: Premise, (basic) World Building, character, progression.

Premise being what the story is about, summed up in like one or two sentences. Character defining who the main leads are and what basic personality traits and goal define them, world building determining e.g. in what time period the plot is set, important locations and so on, while progression shows us where the plot is heading post the initial starting point. These pillars also work in a constant tandem with each other, meaning e.g. that with the plot progression, characters can change in personality, that the world building and premise becomes more complex etc.

And the thing is, based on this post alone, I have no idea what it is Dobson wants to sell to us. He doesn’t give us a name for a lead character, he doesn’t give us a basic premise and the fact he hasn’t thought even the most basic idea for villains and weapons makes it more than obvious, that he has no “world building” ideas either. His “pitch” for a story is less than a note made on a napkin.

See, you can love or hate Sailor Moon and Ladybug as much as you want (I know I have not really a positive opinion on the later) but even if they’ve made shit up along the way, they knew what they were or are going for.

With Sailor Moon e.g. it is easily established, that the main character named Usagi is a clumsy, rather whinny school girl living in Tokyo, who has the power to turn into Sailor Moon, a guardian of the light who has to save earth from Queen Beryl of the Dark Kingdom. The idea of her fellow senshis having powers mostly based around elements, while being named after planets of our solar system is also established quickly as a theme, as is e.g. that the villains are named after minerals. And no, I am not making a Steven Universe joke now.

Action to save the world against the power of darkness by trusting in your friends.... Meanwhile for Ladybug, the story is set in Paris conflict is centered around Ladybug and CatNoir fighting Hawkmoth, who wants their Miraculouses to change reality with a wish. The respective powers of the heroes and villains are established quickly, as is the main “civilian” conflict of Marinette having a crush on Adrien, both not knowing that the other is part of the hero theme. All while the “action” is centered on Hawkmoth creating new monsters of the week by corrupting civilians, who need to be freed of an Akuma, while in Sailor Moon the monsters were either already existing demonic minions of the bad guy, artificially created via objects or civilians who had been corrupted without the villain having to monologue first or waiting for them to be in a bad mood.

LADYNOIR DANCE FROM THE MOVIE!!😱 #miraculousawakening #shorts #miraculous #ladynoir #love #trending

Ladynoir Dance from the Awakening Movie ❤️I do not own the video material or the Song used in this video. credits goes to the rightful owner

...vs romance. Though to be fair, the movie does a way better job at making me care for these two thirsty preteens than five seasons of Thomas Astruc's thing

But Dobson’s post… it lacks everything hinting on him having even a broad idea of what he wants to do.

Just to dissect the post even further:

First paragraph, Dobson says he wants to make a short magical girl series. Define short. The average Pretty Cure season needs around 52 episodes to wrap up its plot, Magica Madoka did the same in 12 episodes and one movie (edit: I know it was thre movies, but two of them are just compilation movies, so that doesn’t count much in my opinion). Sailor Moon’s first major story arc in anime consisted of 41 episodes, Miraculous meanwhile needed over 130 episodes and two specials to finally wrap up the abysmal Hawkmoth “arc”.

Already, if you don’t want to overwork yourself with the idea, you are better off actually setting up parameters yourself, instead of asking others what they think you should do. Not to forget, up until that point in time, Dobson had not really created much for years. SYAC comics aside, he was only doing work on rather awkward Ladybug fan comics and worked in “secret” on Cabin’s Rest. So the expectations he could even do with that idea was lower than his Patreon income. And to be frank, even “short” magical girl stories I know like Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne or Card Captor Sakura needed around 7-12 volumes of like 200+ pages per volume to wrap their stories up. Dobson meanwhile had not once in his life published even a third volume to any of his stuff.

Second paragraph, essentially asking for others to come up with the ideas. I mean sure, he rather asks for average trope a reader wants to see instead of others to automatically give him all the character designs etc. But it is still a bad move.

As stated earlier, there are different camps of magical girl series, so it can be already hard to define what counts as “average”. I mean, it all depends on how far the creator, rather than the audience wants to go. Magica Madoka is a completely different Behemoth than Sailor Moon, and Sailor Moon itself, despite its own repetative elements was still darker than lets say Ladybug is. I mean, at least Sailor Moon did not romanticize abusive parents and characters, the main lead was not a crepy stalker and characters could die in it.

Third paragraph, as stated further above, confirming he has no idea what to even go for. Cause if he had even the slightest idea, he may already have in mind something for the villains and heroes, that would fit in the “mood” of the story he wants to tell.

Fuck me, he can’t even think of basic powers. Like okay, don’t just outright look at Ladybug and copy the powersets there. But come on. Just open up a Pokemon gaming guide while blindfolded, put your finger on any random page describing a move and then make that move a superpower. All you have to do then is think of a scenario in which whatever power it is, even if it is otherwise a sucker, would work. Even if it is just for the sake of comedic effect. 

Like honestly, some idea I have: How about a team of magical girls that have powers correlating to figures of Greek mythology. Give one the ability to foresee the future like the great Cassandra, give one character the powers of Demeter, meaning she can summon plants, another one is a great Hunter like Artemis, one is a wise leader who can up with great strategies like Athena…

Dang, I think I just came up with way more of an “original” idea than Dobson.

And let’s be real here: Thinking up basic shit is at times not that hard. It is finetuning those ideas, that is.

How can anyone working in the creative fields, a person who actually went to college to study animation and how to draw comic, have failed to catch up on such basic concepts behind storytelling? I know kindergarden kids who are able to catch up on it, just by having watched more than one cartoon over their young life.

Then again, THIS right here is the advice he has given once in term of how to "write" a story.

Terry Pratchett's ghost: What a wanker!

And finally, anything and all suggestions are welcome? Yeah, I press X for doubt here.

After all, Dobson was never really what I would consider the most open person to anything that was not really within his comfort zone. So I think that if anyone had for example suggested him to create a gay male character as a villain or supporting character or that he should have taken a page from something like the Magical Girl Raising Project, he would have likely just blocked that person and thrown a fit about how people have corrupted something as pure and innocent as the magical girl genre.

In doing so ignoring, that he had done the same with his rather creepy Ladybug fancomics

You know... for KIDS!

In addition to that, there is also to be considered, that if he had listened to too many ideas and suggestions, he would have been unable to really create something decent anyway. You know, too many cooks, throwing in everything and the kitchen sink… that sort of logic.

But let us be real here: This “thing” whatever it was supposed to be in Dobson’s head, was never going to materialize anyway. After all, when was the last time up till then, that Dobson actually bothered to create something “new” all by himself, instead of simply doing a fan comic or using SYAC as platform to whine how bad nerds are? Plus, considering the timeframe he started to post it (around the same time he started making Ladybug comic strips that got popular on tumblr and instagramm, though at times not by his own doing), it is obvious he only tried to jump on the bandwagon that was Miraculous Ladybug. His “favorite” little cartoon at the time, that ironically has earned a lot of criticism over the recent years, to the point people reevaluate how good of a magical girl show it really is compared to either the classics or new stuff coming out.

The bottom line is, Dobson tried to generate some sort of hype for something he wanted to do, without even having a basic idea of what it was supposed to be, that he wanted to create. And in posting this, the only thing he really did was show to the rest of the world, that as a cartoonist, he didn’t even grasp something so basic, My little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the Owl House actually got it.

Kneel before your queens!

Well, that is a lot. However, I do not want to end just on a “bitter” note with this entry. Instead, I want to ask some of you, to prove to me that you may be a little more imaginative than Dobson, by perhaps posting to me some ideas you may have for a magical girl inspired story or character. Not even something too complicated, just whatever you think would be fun, dark, interesting and so on. I promise, I am not going to steal your ideas for my own gain. All I want to see, is if the rest of the world there has a few more ideas, than a professional cartoonist.

And in turn, I think I will try and flesh my own “pitch” from a few paragraphes above out a bit, if you like.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

A hat full of shit

Just a very short post compared to others this time. Lets start by playing a game, shall we? Can you identify the difference between these two pics of Dobson?

And no, just because they show the same douchebag, they are not the same. Cause in one pic, something important is missing!

Yeah, that's right, the hat. To be more precise, the fedora Dobson would like to draw himself with, based on the fact that at least ever since college Dobson had been a fedora wearer in real life. Likely to hide his eggshaped, bald calvaria.

Now frankly, I don't think the fedora as a hat in itself is something terrible. In fact, it is actually something of a feministic icon, originating from a headpiece a female character named "Princess Fedora Romanova" wore in a theater play called "Fedora" by the french writer Sadoun from 1882. The character even played by a highly respected actress at the time called Sarah Bernhardt. And after it got popularity via the play, it was worn mostly by women in the late half of the 19th century -particularly members of the first feministic movements- it became popular with men in the 1920s all over the world, especially in America where it was famous during the prohibition, the 40s-60s, in Hollywood movies (particularly the detetive noir ones of the time) and so on.

Nowadays however... well, we all know the memes, how the fedora is something of the first indicative piece of clothing a fake feminist or unhinged social justice warrior likes to wear.

And even Dobson, though a bit late to the party, eventually became aware of the negative association the fedora developed online, which is actually the reason why he stopped wearing the hat altogether.

As he made known in a "humourous" fashion through this dumb SYAC strip...

And would also confirm quite a few years later on twitter, when he ranted randomly about how internet creeps ruined the hat for him.

And as to be expected of Dobson, utter lack of self awareness. At all.

Cause honestly, if he thinks only male douchebags wear a fedora now... well, then he should have kept it on. After all, it fit him.

There is really not much here I can say than the following: If Dobson wanted NOT to be associated with (male) douchebaggery at all, then getting rid of his hat was not the right course of action. Cause being Dobson, it did not matter if he wore a fedora, 80s leggings, nothing, a plain white shirt or started vapping: A douchebag, is a douchebag independent of his choice of clothing.

Dobson wasn't seen as a douche because of his hat or rather a lack thereof.

He was a douche because he was condescending, creepy, acted like he was a semi authority at what "decent" and "progressive" entertainment is like/should be, despite a severe lack of actually creating stories of his own and many other reasons.

Heck, Dobson couldn't even be halfway "consistent" with the fact he abandoned his hat. After all, even in the years following that comic, he would occassionally still draw himself with the hat.

No, seriously. The comic condamning fedoras, according to the base timeline I can construct on the release date of the comics, indicate it to have come out sometime before 2014.

And then when he made his patreon campaign video in 2015... well, I unfortunately only have a modified version of that video found online, but guess what sort of headwear shows up in the "unedit" parts.

I hope that whatever happened with his hat, it found a better use than resting on his skull. Who knows, perhaps it was donated to the homeless and is now catching more money on average, than Dobson earned via patreon

[soyouareandrewdobson]

…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4

Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.

Persistent Pam

 Curmudgeonly Carl

And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.

No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once

All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)

And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo

Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips

 And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)

 She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub

 Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.

As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.

In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.

Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.

 However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.

Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…

On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend

BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…

… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.

 Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.

But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.

Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.

Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?

 Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.

Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.

 The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen

Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.

Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.

BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.

 Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.

And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!

This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS

And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…

 You can frankly go and screw yourself.

On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.

Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.

I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.

But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.

There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…

And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.

 What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.

For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?

I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.

Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.

Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…

And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen

And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.

As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.

Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.

Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.

Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.

There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them

 You failed.

Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.

Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.

Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?

 Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.

The comic here is actually called politics. … ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.

Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.

Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.

When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.

Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?

And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.

It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!

… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.

 And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!

And that is it.

Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.

Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Andy on Asian Animation or SYAC: The Master Review 2

Let’s talk a bit about anime and Dobson’s work relation with it.

I think we can all agree, that starting from the late 90s and early 2000s on, anime and manga became extremely popular in the western world. Sure, Japanese animation was nothing completely new to us (Speed Racer, Nadia-Secret of Blue Water, Samurai Pizza Cats, Sailor Moon, Kimba and Akira e.g. come to my mind as properties already known in the west before 1995) but it really was around this time that thanks to “mainstream” stuff like Dragon Ball and Pokemon people became aware of how different Japanese animation was from western. Eventually resulting in the really good shit (like Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon, Kenshin and Heat Guy J) coming over and enriching nerd culture for more than just a few people who knew of it as an obscurity at that point. Now, if you know anything about Dobson, you likely know that his relationship with anime is rather… complicated to say the least. Or, to let him explain it with his own words…

Dobson essentially likes silly and wacky 90s anime. But later on he hated anime in general, because it got too popular and a bad experience with an anime club in college soured his enjoyment of it. Furthermore, he put the blame on his lackluster art style and storytelling capabilities as seen in the likes of Formera, Patty and Alex ze Pirate, on anime in general, while also claiming that Disney pulling the plug on 2D animation is the result of the “anime inspired” Treasure Planet, meaning anime in a sense deprived him of his chance at working at his dream job and “ruining” western animation.

Which to me has always been ignorant as fuck. For starters, I can understand not liking certain stories or genres, either for objective or subjective reasons. But to hate on an entire nation’s form of entertainment (not just individual shows or genres), depriving yourself of the chance of potentially watching a lot of good stuff while also being rather insulting to these other works and people enjoying them? Especially when the stuff you can supposedly “stomach” has been rather simplistic compared to other things?

 Second, blaming Japan for “poisoning” your art style? What, did the ghost of Osamu Tezuka possess you and FORCE you to put sweatdrops on your characters forehead while also going for the rather simplistic character style of Rumiko Takahashi, as well as emulating the slapstick of the likes as Slayers and Ranma ½?

 Next, if he had emulated them successfully, I say he would have actually managed to tell decent enough stories worth to read online. Not create Uncle Peggy aka “Discount Happosai” or the bland proto-Isekai known as Formera.

I mean, let’s give some context here: There have been people who successfully managed to emulate certain anime and manga aesthetics into western animation and make it work. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten the likes of Avatar-The last Airbender, Samurai Jack, the Animatrix, Thundercats 2011, Super Robot Monkey Hyperforce Go, Kim Possible, W.I.T.C.H, Megas XLR and Wakfu. You know, shows that are actually awesome as hell.

Heck, Dobson’s favorite animated show of the last decade, Steven Universe, is heavily inspired by anime aesthetics to the point of being embarrassing.

 But Dobson… well, he emulated anime aesthetics in his work the same way as these crimes against animation did.

Combined with his general shortcomings as a storyteller it is no wonder his initial comics did not do well.

 Lastly, and sorry for digressing here a bit, but if the Wikipedia entry on Treasure Planet is something to go by, there was no real inspiration by anime involved in making this movie.

Supposedly the idea of making an animated Treasure Planet in outer space movie was already pitched by Ron Clements WAY BACK in 1985 but only came to be after Michael Eisner greenlighted stuff in the late 90s. Design wise the movie was supposed to look 70% traditional and 30% sci-fi inspired and people took inspiration for the art style by illustrators associated with the Brandywine School of Illustration. A western style of illustration established in the 19th century, that had a big impact on the illustration styles for many 19th and early 20th century adventure novels and short stories.

What, is anime supposed to be the only form of animation allowed to have sci fi elements or steampunk in it? Fucks sake, The Lion King and Atlantis, which came out one year earlier to Treasure Planet, were likely more inspired by anime. Don’t believe me? Watch Atlantis and then a certain anime by Studio Gainax called “Nadia-Secret of Blue Water”. Or read up on the controversy surrounding the two.

The truth is, it is not entirely clear what caused Disney to shut down 2D feature film animation in the early 2000s. In fact, if anything, most people put the blame on Michael Eisner and a certain change in the publics taste in movies in general, combined with Disney trying to turn almost every movie they had into a franchise via cheap follow up movies on video and DVD.

And even if Disney did not shut down, are we really supposed to believe that a certain guy with fedora would have made it big at Disney to the point Alex ze Pirate would have been made into a feature film?

But Dobson could never quite understand this and instead of “reinventing” himself properly, he would rant about anime and its fans in one form or another…

 And on the peak of his hissy fit create this little art piece he baptized Anime Sux. Alternatively “West vs East”. Or as I like to call it, slap a jap.

Now, the pic was done in 2008 and Dobson claimed sometimes in the last decade, that he no longer holds his old opinions. Unfortunately, by that point he would also more or less use the chance to vent in his webcomic about anime (or rather its fans), which brings us finally back to SYAC.

 While Dobson never outright thematized in more detail WHY he hates anime and manga in SYAC (likely cause if his comic reasoning was even slightly like his reasoning in his blogs, people would have torn him apart like a bag of paper) he did use the format to punch down on anime fans and their preferences.

 For example, for someone who has a 4chan story going around of having been rather arrogant towards others in college for not liking Ranma ½, Dobson has THIS little college related comic to show off, where he portrays an aspiring manga artist as a delusional jackass.

Then in this strip titled manga, his manga fan is essentially portrayed as a young woman dressing up like a very stereotypical high school anime girl, who is in the wrong for even just DARING to draw her comics in the direction manga are read.

On one hand, I get Dobson’s point. She could be at risk of alienating a market of readers as she is obviously drawing for a western audience. Then again, if she doesn’t draw a traditional western comic but a manga, why shouldn’t she? I mean, as long as she enjoys it, which I assume she does as she seems genuinely just happy when stating that she likes manga, why not let her? Plus, this comic was drawn in the late 2000s. I think by then most people kinda knew how to read from right to left, so Dobson’s claim she would alienate or confuse people is kinda redundant. If anything I find a) Dobson getting angry at her just very petty (just let her have fun) and b) portraying a western manga fan as someone who would be confused by the sheer idea of reading stuff from right to left is also in itself just really dumb and insulting. What is Dobson trying to imply? That anime fans are so stuck in the way they consume certain media, they can’t act according to “western standards” again?

Then there is this strip where yet another female anime fan is essentially portrayed as the embodiment of how “ignorant” manga fans are of the idea of different art styles...

Which becomes rather laughable once Dobson describes his style as a mixture of European, American and  Japanese. Why? Because he is the one oversimplifying things, rather than the anime fan.

You see while anime and manga of all sorts do share certain aesthetics (like the black and white art style, emphasize on the eyes of characters, the way hair is drawn, recurring tropes within certain genres and so on) style wise (both in art and storytelling) there can be severe differences, depending on the artist alone. Akira Toriyama’s style differentiates significantly from the likes of Eichiro Oda, Rumiko Takahashi, Kentaro Miura, Tezuka, Kaori Yuki and so forth.

The same also goes for many western artists. Herge had a significantly different style from Uderzo and Goscinny. Don Rosa has a different style in which he drew Scrooge McDuck than Carl Barks did. Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee draw mainstream superheroes differently compared to how Jack Kirby, George Perez and others did. Heck, Ethan Van Sciver and Jim Lee were closely associated with Green Lantern in the 2000s and look how they differentiate.

 Which btw is the kind of skill level Dobson would have needed to have, to make it in the mainstream industry

So when Dobson says “I draw in a combination of American, Western and Japanese” all I can think is the following: THAT DOESN’T NARROW IT DOWN! WHAT THE HECK HAVE YOU LEARNT IN COLLEGE ABOUT COMICS? WHICH ARTISTS, WORKS AND STORYTELLERS DO YOU TRY TO EITHER EMULATE OR HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY?

Then there is this little thing…

Where do I even begin? How about the fact that Dobson’s hand in the last panel looks like he has lost a thumb? The fact that the little boy, anime fan or not, is aware of Sae Sawanoguchi, a character from a short lived OVA and anime series from the 90s, which considering his age, I kinda doubt he would be aware off. Unlike Dobson, who got into anime in the 90s and admits in fact within the posts I loaded up earlier, that he had watched the anime in particular, known in the west as Magic User Club.

Then there is the implication by Dobson, that anime is so “corruptive” as a medium, little kids don’t even know the most basic characters in western animation because of it. I expect in a next panel, that all of sudden some 50s PSA guy comes along and lectures me that if I want this kind of thing not to happen at MY convention, I need to teach little kids more about the GOOD western animation, instead of the BAD eastern one. Then there is this rather unflattering portrayal of a shonen ai/shojou ai fangirl…

 Which makes me laugh cause honestly, even some of the worst shonen ai and shojou ai can do better in portraying a “realistic” gay relationship than Patty if you ask me.

Also, as much as I think fangirls can be extremely thirsty (I have read my fair share of extremely stupid yaoi and yuri fanfics) I think that in hindsight Dobson is really not anyone to complain about shipping obsession and sex when he himself has KorraSami, the Ladybug fandom and a certain rat pirate under his floppy belt.

As you can imagine, Dobson would get heat for those comics, considering how he himself has been greatly inspired by anime and manga for his major comics. And while I don’t have any explicit deviantart posts of him reacting to criticism in that regard, I do have this comic which addresses it directly.

 And yeah, if I were schoolgirl number 4, I would just sigh and walk away after telling Dobson that his mistakes and shortcomings are not related to having consumed anime, but rather by what sort of anime (and other stories) he had consumed and the amount of effort he had put in creating his stories instead of emulating just something more popular. Plus, if you really want people to draw more from life, how about drawing more from life yourself down the line? And no, tracing Star Wars movie frames does not count.

Finally, Dobson, considering how very little most people think of your work, I say mission accomplished: People have learnt from your mistakes and know not to be a Dobson.

And at last, there is this comic, which kinda wraps up Dobson’s “vendetta” with anime and manga fans within the pages of SYAC.

By trying to mock anime fans and make them look just as shallow as he is. I at least suppose. Honestly, the message of this comic is rather muddled. On one hand, I would say the strawman accusing Dobson hates anime just because it is popular is very simplified. After all, Dobson has made his reasons for not liking anime clear in a few more details. It’s just that the details in and on themselves in real life are still rather shallow and boil down to a lot of personal bias rather than an objective criticism of actual flaws. Which I think is worth pointing out.

But frankly, what is Dobson trying to say or point out here? That the strawman is not so different or even dumber than him, because he hates Justin Bieber for “shallow” and superficial reasons too?

Okay, this doesn’t quite work as well as Dobson wants. First, the argument Dobson’s strawman makes is in huge parts based on some verified statements Dobson made for not liking anime. Second, he just says a name and that triggers the guy to express his hatred for Bieber. We don’t know why the guy hates Bieber and you could make in fact the case, that he hates him not because he is popular, but because he has a genuine issue with the artist, his work or his behavior as a human being. Third, if you want to make yourself look like the better person Dobson, try to argue with the guy and make solid arguments why you don’t like anime. Instead you just deflect the criticism by changing the subject and then try to make yourself look like the “smarter” person in the room by mocking your critic in the most condescending manner.

Which as I think about it, sounds like your modus operandi on twitter and tumblr.

Weirdly enough, that more or less marks the “end” of Dobson tackling anime fans and the beef he has with them within the pages of SYAC. Despite how much Dobson’s negative reputation especially in early years was build around him hating on anime and belittling its fans, he didn’t really do more afterwards in the Dobson focused pages of SYAC. And mind you, those strips were also separated by other strips in-between, focused on Dobson just being at conventions.

Unfortunately for him, the strips didn’t really help in any way to diminish that negative reputation and instead just confirmed for many, that Dobson can’t handle criticism about his flawed opinion on anime. If anything, it just made people think even less of Dobson, as the strips just painted him as someone who would rather portray his critics as strawman he can be “rightfully” annoyed at, instead of fellow humans with slightly different tastes in entertainment, who are still worth listening to.

So, now that we have the anime fan related “annoyances” out of the way, what other sort of silly problems in making webcomics would Dobson cover in his strips and are “relatable” to everyone?

Lets see some of these examples in the next part.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

The good, the bad and... SYAC: The Master Review 3

Not gonna lie, writing out this and the next part of my Master Review was more of a chore than the one before or even after (yes, certain later parts are almost wrapped up)

The reason is, that as of now the only thing I can really talk about is the quality of the average SYAC strip pre-Dobbear and quite frankly, most of them are just rather dull in one way or another.

See, here is the thing with Andrew Dobson in general: When you ignore his opinions outside of comics and assume that his works are not meant to be on a level equal to certain professional work, his stuff is rather harmless and to a certain extend enjoyable.

For example, I think Formera is in terms of pacing all over the place and Alex is “at best” on the same level as Garfield in terms of depth. Which would be okay if you look for something shallow to just distract yourself from boredom.

In fact, I find Formera, despite its flaws and blatant rip off of “wacky” anime aesthetics, rather admirable in a way.

But then you remember, that Dobson is a professionally trained comic artist and animator who aspired to be published at least in the same way as “Cleopatra in Space” or “Hilda”, while also throwing shade at many professionally released works and those behind it, as if to imply he is better than them.

So with that in mind and his art at display, his work gets obviously judged on another level than certain other stuff online would likely be judged.

For example, as far as things go, this strip would be “passable” as a stupid joke that references Inspector Gadget, if just drawn by some hobby artist.

But as something from a “professional”? It’s rather underwhelming, even in something that is not meant to be the biggest selling point of him at the time it came out (serious sidenote: SYAC was essentially just a side project next to Alex ze Pirate and Dobson doing comics in collaboration with Brentalfloss. It was only after the collaboration ended and Dobson essentially put Formera and Alex into indefinite hiatus, that SYAC became his main comic)

It also doesn’t help (and sorry for repeating myself) that as far as his intentions go to make a comic about “silly problems” cartoonists face in creating their work, it still is filled with strips like these

Like, what is the point of a comic showing you as a kid getting scared by the intro tune to the Ghostbusters theme on a shitty computer game? The only thing I can think of when it comes to the “magical changing tv” is that your lol face looks stupid and slightly punchable (like your cheeks are falling in) and what the joke about the Minecraft comic is supposed to be I have no freaking idea. I know that those green penises tend to explode, but what does that have to do with making a comic?

Now to be fair, there are some comics about the subject of creating comics…

And Dobson even has done some “tutorials” and q&a to teach people about his comic creating process.

Tutorials whose advice I myself can not really judge, because frankly I am not an artist myself. I judge Dobson’s strips/comics primarily on execution of jokes, writing and intend. And frankly, as long as the final result looks good, I myself do not really care how it is achieved. The problem is, that the final results just tends to look kinda like this on average, so…

Yeah. And don’t get me even started on his “advice” to writing

 As such, I would take ANY art advice by Dobson with a huge grain of salt

 That said, I will give Dobson the following: This q&a strip here e.g. where he more or less talks about the nature of backgrounds in what seems to be a way more sincere tone than I see in his stuff on average?

I think it is kinda adorable and shows that he actually can draw more than just a self insert in front of a green void, if he just wants to.

Plus, I think there are actually some solid strips in SYAC. Not artistically, but I will admit that strips like this

This…

And these…

182, 118 and 119, 120

 And these...

Are actually kinda fitting and situations I can imagine people to deal with when creating a comic. To me they are relatable, and the later got a chuckle out of me.

 Even some strips of Dobson’s persona just at his booth or having his own “hilarious” moments in life are at least passable to some degree.

So shock of all shocks, not everything about SYAC, even at that time in Dobson’s life, was that bad. Like I give him credit, at least once upon a time he was able to make fun of himself…

Heck, I give that copy pasta comic at least that as obvious as the joke is, it is a bit clever. Not the smartest joke, but it could be worse. At least here Dobson kinda admits he will do copy paste. Unlike when he whines about “sexist crap”

 But then there are certain strips that at least are worth to raise an eyebrow. Like the anime related strips in the previous post or this bizarre confession in relation to one of his q&As.

Okay, I was thankfully saved from ever watching the atrocity known as Barney, so just let me check on google who the heck Baby Bop is to understand what… oh. And he drew artwork of Barney killing her. … that sounds kinda worrysome.

Then there is how Dobson e.g. decided to “address” his infamy regarding his opinion on Zelda-Ocarina of Time…

“hich involves a critic of his being portrayed as an ugly basement dweller. Or this comic, which got rather infamous once it got linked to Brianna Wu and Dobson would most likely want to forget nowadays, as it portrays him, the ally of the LGBT community as someone who actually is rather freaked out at men comfortable with a more feminine side/attire.

So now we have more or less covered some good and some bad ones. But what about the “ugly” ones? Yeah, that is going to be a quick skim through the archives with showing some strips that are going to stand out, because they give a first insight in how Dobson deals with criticism, perceives people (or rather stand ins for them) and their opinions, as well as how he tries and fails to catch up on certain trends.