I’ll share my personal story here in condensed form. I started reading the comic about 10 years ago and quickly became obsessed. I’d say at this point I’ve reread the entire thing… I don’t know, let’s say 5 or 6 times. At its peak, no other webcomic can match Gunnerkrigg for art, for story, or for character. What a stunning, spooky, subtle, complex, and deeply moving comic—and at times hilarious as well. All centered around Annie, one of the most heartbreakingly relatable characters I’ve ever encountered.
My personal turning point was The Tree. I feel like this is where some other fans would put their turning points, too. Anthony’s return brought the comic to a point I feel like it still hasn’t recovered from. Something happened at that point which slowly but surely made GKC a chore to read and keep up with, rather than a pleasure. The story now proceeds in awkward leaps and lurches rather than the patient, unfolding pace we were accustomed to for the first decade.
Nowadays, there’s no slow, careful unfolding of story. Major plot threads get resolved—or introduced and then immediately resolved (see the two Annies)—in ways that feel nowhere near satisfying or even coherent. New arcs are introduced that feel weird and tacked-on and, at worst, annoyingly unwelcome (Loup, who has never quite felt integrated into the story of the comic). The story is telling rather than showing 99.9% of the time. It’s ALL exposition. It’s like Tom is racing at full tilt towards the finish line so he can start working on something else he’s more passionate about. And worst of all, Annie Carver herself now feels like a side character in her own story. She displays few moments of autonomy or personality. She’s just kind of “girl who is there.” I don’t feel like we know her anymore. And for such an incredibly nuanced protagonist, that’s the worst crime of all.
But I might still be reading if not for two particular incidents. I usually can stay loyal to something I’ve loved despite its declining quality, but I never quite came back from the chapter where Tom seems to address reader criticism of Tony, Annie’s deadbeat-at-best dad, by having an entire chapter dedicated to how Tony is excused from being a deadbeat, actually, because he has an ambiguous mental illness of some sort, and ending with Annie looking directly at the viewer to tell us she doesn’t care and loves him anyway and she’s fine and we should all stop worrying, and then having Jones, the literal impartial observer character, agree with her.
That was my last straw. The comic was done for me after that. All my goodwill was gone. I’m honestly still enraged even though this happened more than a year ago; I could talk about it for paragraphs in another post, and I probably will. But for whatever reason I kept reading, morbid curiosity I guess?
Until I reached the point where Lana is almost sexually assaulted by elf kids. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, for so many reasons. GKC has gone so very far off the rails. I realized I was actively dreading each new page and I didn’t want to read at all anymore. I’m done, and I’ve only periodically checked in with the comic since then, each time discovering it’s gone even further off the rails than before.
It really feels like the author has clocked out. The art is no longer stunning (IMO), and the story no longer has any passion in it. It’s not unique or charming or heartbreaking or funny the way it once was. It’s just… random stuff happening. A story about robots, told robotically. At turns, unfortunately, it’s even actively offensive and bad. And for a comic that was once so special, that sucks especially much.
