(cache) Websnark: You Had Me, And You Lost Me: Why I don't read Megatokyo

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Eric: You Had Me, And You Lost Me: Why I don't read Megatokyo

From Megatokyo, in case the title of the entry somehow escaped you.

Megatokyo is one of the rockstars of the webcomics hobby. While it's somewhat more of a niche comic than the true runaway stars, in Anime/Manga circles it's the 500 pound gorilla, and even outside of them it can give Penny Arcade, PvP and Sluggy a run for its money. Con reports almost always mention how packed Megatokyo panels and signings and booths are, and the engagement and subsequent wedding of Fred and Sarah Gallagher have become the stuff of Fannish Legend.

I don't read Megatokyo. I used to, but then I stopped. And every time I go back, I'm reminded of why.

Megatokyo started as an artistic collaboration, between Gallagher ("Piro") and Rodney Caston ("Largo"). In fact, the "Megatokyo" website was owne by Caston, who had been running a slashcode server unsuccessfully. They began to write a series on the Penny Arcade model -- a gamer geek with a sardonic sense of humor writing, a gamer geek providing the art. However, Gallagher didn't come from a cartoonist background and wasn't interested in a comic strip perspective. Instead, as a manga fan, Gallagher decided to draw Megatokyo as a Doujinshi, or amateur manga. This shows in the layout of the strip -- it's full page, clearly meant as the pencilwork for a book (at least in concept). And it shows in Gallagher's pacing. Where Gabe and Tycho approach their usual work (setting aside the adventures of the Cardboard Tube Samurai or Twisp and Catsby for a moment) from a comic-strip perspective -- in art, style, execution and humor, Megatokyo is clearly supposed to develop like a Manga develops, both in complexity and style. And while Piro is a gamer, his preferred style of gaming (as he admits) are Japanese romance sims -- which is also one of his preferred styles of manga.

In other words... Megatokyo, in Gallagher's eyes, is a romantic comedy with weird things that happen.

One gets the feeling Caston didn't agree. When Caston was collaborating, there was far more funny in the strip, which satirized manga as much as celebrated it. To enter Tokyo without a passport, Largo needed to defeat a Ninja in Mortal Kombat, for example -- and in schooling the ninja, he ended up getting him as an apprentice. Piro was essentially the straight man for the craziness, and the fun of the strip was watching the straight laced young anime and manga fan try to cope with the insanity Largo brought into his life, while also dealing with the alien world Tokyo turned out to be, instead of how he'd imagined it.

Then Caston left. And with him went the spark. The vim. The vigor. And a lot of the funny.

Not all of it. Seraphim (Largo's angelic conscience) Angelic Body Attack against her demonic counterpart was hilarious, for example. But it slowly stopped being a strip where people got coffee in their laps (or accidentially got a full, hot coffeepot slammed into their head) and started being... well....

It's not that there aren't still coffee jokes. It's that they're forced instead of natural. It's not that crazy things don't happen -- it's that they feel like they're happening out of obligation. It's like the Largo side of the story stopped mattering, and Piro stopped being a straight man -- instead, the series became entirely about Piro, and all the attractive girls who are in his life, and how he lacks the emotional maturity to figure out how to handle it. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's a perfectly good basis for a webcomic. It would probably be better if he stopped trying to put Largo-style craziness into the strip, since he doesn't 'get' it, but what the Hell.

Except that's just part of the picture.

Another part is speed and consistency of updates. I've said before that I recognize that cartoonists don't "owe" us anything, typically. We don't pay them, so they get to update when they feel like it. On the other side of it, the more you yank around your readership, particularly with updates, the less reaon that readership has to come back. When you just stop updating, or do it when you have time or feel like it, there's no decent reason to expect people to invest energy in your strip.

And then there's the point you reach, when you do make your strip your job. Your source of income. The way food gets on your table. And then all bets are off.

One of the reasons cartoonists hate syndicates is because of editors. Editors call and yell at you if your strip is late. Editors call and tell you to redo your strip because it's not funny. Editors call and say your strip is funny, but your audience will be offended so change it. Editors call and say the publisher is banging down his door and screaming, so fix the problems! Webcomics have the absolute, glorious freedom that artists of all stripes have yearned for forever -- freedom from editorial control.

The second you declare your strip to be your primary means of support, you desperately need an editor. And that editor needs to have the power to call you, scream at you, and even fire you for not doing your job. Because that's what your strip has become -- your job. And when you blow off the strip, you're blowing off your work, and the audience you've brought are the people who are feeding you, so you suddenly do owe them. You owe them for the food and the electricity and the Internet Access they're paying for.

If your strip's revenue model is based on reprints and original printing for a comic book (a la Pvp), you're beholden to your publishers, and your strip is important because the strip is creating the audience. If your audience gets fed up because you make promises you don't keep, either in terms of content or just in terms of the strip showing up on time, they don't buy your comic and the publisher gets pissed.

Megatokyo had major problems in this regard -- to the point that Piro actually put up a progress bar on his front page, detailing how close he was to finishing the next page. He knew he wasn't hitting the targets he promised, so he at least gave us progress reports. And he gave us filler strips -- usually random stuff from his sketchbook, or "Dead Piro Days," which were 'days that the artist is tired and braindead, so here's something else for you.'

You remember the last entry I did, in praise of Filler Art? Dead Piro Days are the antithesis of good filler art. First off, a huge number of them are "Shirt Guy Dom" days -- stick figure art done by one of Gallagher's associates, in emulation of Sluggy Freelance's "Shirt Guy Tom" filler art strips. Unfortunately, the comparison breaks down because Shirt Guy Tom days were actually funny, and Shirt Guy Dom days... well, weren't. At all. Second off, Sluggy stopped doing Shirt Guy Tom after a bit. In fact, because Pete Abrahms knows we're putting the food in his daughter's mouth, he actually recruited Trillian, a Sluggite of renown, to organize appropriate activities for the days he couldn't produce the work -- be those filler art, guest art, randomness, "great moments in Sluggy nudity" strips, or what have you. It's not as good as getting the daily strip, but it shows concern for the audience and keeps them happy. Shirt Guy Dom doesn't do that.

Now, this could all be old news. Going back through the last several strips doesn't show any Shirt Guy Dom's (though it does show an ad for tee shirts that featured a sulky Piro complaining that he needs to actually produce a strip because "people are starting to complain," which makes me think things haven't changed all that much). And honestly, people know I'm often willing to let update crap slide. So was that enough to knock me out of the whole shebang?

Nope. To do that, Megatokyo had to succumb to a deadly vice: density.

Megatokyo has a lot of characters. In doing a websearch for a fansite, I found one that listed no less than fourteen "major" characters for the series, plus a block of minor characters. They have a lot of plotlines. They have a lot of mysterious pasts. They have a lot of different interactions. They have a lot of different girls, most of whom look twelve, interested in Piro, who admittedly also looks like a 12 year old girl, so maybe the attraction is understandable.

And as God is my witness, even when I was reading the strip daily and as into it as I ever got -- and I have a pretty good memory for useless details and the detritus of my daily life -- I couldn't ever tell you more than four of the characters' names. I could barely keep track of them visually, even. I knew Piro and Largo, and Seraphim because she was the cute angel girl, and Boo because he was the hampster. And Ping, because Ping is easy to remember... and... um....

Well, there was the tall one. And the one that we're supposed to root for Piro to fall in love with. And the schoolgirl, only she also had friends, and it was hard to tell them apart because Piro only draws one young female face, and... um... hm. Oh, the scary goth girl, who actually never seemed scary or goth, or in fact substantially different than the schoolgirl -- who was in junior high but she was being put forward as a potential romantic interest for Piro, and that was just creepy and....

This was a strip desperately in need of a scorecard, and it never provided one. In fact, in researching this snark, I went to Megatokyo right now, like a year and a half later, and clicking on the cast list. And got exactly the same page I got the last time I looked, when I was an active reader and couldn't keep up: "(i'll finish this section when i feel like it)" all by itself on a page. All in lower case, including the 'i's.

"I'll finish this section when I feel like it?"

This is your fucking JOB, you IDIOT! You want new readers to be able to pick it up without having to read five fucking years of backlog to get into the story! You want current readers who might not remember every detail of your strip to actually be able to refresh their memories when you pull an obscure character back in! And given that at least one of your regular readers couldn't remember your female romantic lead's name half the time, it might help to give him someplace to CHECK!

RAUGH!

Okay, I'm better.

Frustrated at incredibly sporadic updates and characters I could only basically remember, I decided to move Megatokyo onto the "sporadically checked list." I do that with strips I like -- remember, I did like Megatokyo -- that have update issues to the point that I'm bugged, or otherwise like to read through in bunches when I'm in the mood. The brilliant Men in Hats and Flem Comics are both on that list, and I'd rate them close to my favorite comics, so there is no shame in being on it. It's rare that a comic on my "Why am I reading this comic, again?" list moves to "sporadically checked." It's a lot more likely they'll go onto my "you had me, and you lost me" list directly.

So a couple of months go by, and I go back and check the archives.

And nothing much has happened. Oh, (some) strips had been published, but there was little storyline movement. At all. In fact, it's like I'd never paused.

So I waited a couple more months.

Same experience.

So I waited half a year.

Okay. I could see some evidence of plotline evolution, but it took. Freaking. Forever.

This has to be the slowest paced storyline comic ever. I can't imagine it being any slower. You could build barns, paint them and wire them for electricity, use them as barns, then clean out the poop and hay, recondition them as 'loft apartments' and sell them as condos in the amount of time Megatokyo takes for Piro to get up, have breakfast, do another stupid 'Ping is an innocent and he doesn't acknowledge she has feelings' riff, go downstairs, put on a stupid hat and wait for a customer in the strip.

It's now been well over a year, and some storyline stuff has clearly happened, looking at it. And yet, there's little evidence of any kind of resolutions or payoffs. In fact, the major changes seem to be that they've added yet a bunch more characters. But of course, no cast list so you could keep track of them.

You can get away with no plotline development -- or incredibly slow pacing -- in a strip with regular or daily funny. Plots don't have to develop in strips with funny, because we come to the strip for the funny. When Caston was around, the funny made long gaps okay. No matter how long Irregular Webcomic (a badly named piece, because Morgan-Mar is nothing if not consistant in updates) takes to actually resolve its stories, it doesn't matter because there's always funny.

When your strip isn't about funny, but is instead about story, the story has to move. It has to move quickly enough to keep people engaged. It has to have resolutions and new conflicts to give the reader a reason to stick around. And it has to has to has to has to accomodate new readers and readers who might not obsessively track details from a year ago when they come back up, both with cast lists and probably with storyline annotations or synopses.

Megatokyo fails in this. Badly. It's hostile to new readers unless they commit to reading the backstory. It takes forever to actually resolve the situations it sets up. It gets denser and denser and denser and it plods along all the while.

This is a beautiful webcomic. While Gallagher has limitations as an artist, what he does do he does amazingly well. But, lacking an editor who cracks a whip and forces updates on time (or a community director who makes Dead Piro Days fun instead of exercises in eyerolling), a faster plot or more funny put in to make the slow plot excusable, and some kind of cliff's notes, it's just not worth it. I know it's got a rabid fanbase, and hey, power to them. I know it's the King of the Anime/Manga Fan's Webcomics, and that's cool too. I know he packs them in, and that's great. I hope he and his wife can live off this a long, long time.

But he's doing it without me. He had me, and he lost me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at August 22, 2004 12:43 PM

Comments

Comment from: javac posted at October 13, 2004 10:25 AM

I feel the exact same way about MT now ... I soley check it out of habit. I ranted about the fact that the webcomic folks who rely on it for a living can't ensure that the comic will be there every single day, on time. The comic is what everything else comes from! Even a week of buffer time would ensure that if you get sick, get stuck somewhere, etc the comic still updates.

What's even worse with PvP is he did the 24 comics in 24 hours challenge. He used all of them in the daily updates and was right back to updating late after bring nearly a full month ahead. Arrgh!

You should check out Schlock Mercenary, always updates on time thanks to a nice buffer, entertaining and he's not afraid to kill characters.

Comment from: javac posted at October 13, 2004 10:29 AM

Oops, messed up the Schlock Mercenary link.

Comment from: Jekub posted at October 15, 2004 8:12 PM

I've been reading MegaTokyo for ages, but I can see exactley where your coming from. I'm not a manga fan to start with, so that side of things is pretty much lost on me, and the story progression (or lack of) has been annoying me for a while now. However, I recently picked up the two books, and found myself really enjoying the comic again, the first book being the comics done when megatokyo was a partnership is a reminder of why I enjoyed MT to start with. The second book presents the story in a much better light, everything flows better when your not waiting for things to happen, and when you can clear a years worth of strips in an hour. I think this will be the way I'll read MT from now. I could go to the site once every six months and work through everything online, but the comic sits better in a book and I have a big comfortable leather recliner down stairs for the express purpose of reading them.

Great articles on pvp by the way, I'd never spent that much time thinking on Max Powers before.

As it seems to be the way, here's a comic for you that I have only seen mentioned on another comic site once, when I found it a couple of years back. It has however, always kept me amused http://www.youdamnkid.com/ (sorry for the lack of html, yes I'm very lazy).

Jek

Comment from: tfinniga posted at February 12, 2005 3:17 AM

I think the strip where Megatokyo really jumped the shark is the one where Largo has a crush on someone..

Like the snark mentioned, my favorite part of Megatokyo at the beginning was that two people who enjoyed two types of gaming saw the same world through two completely different lenses - it always seemed to me that the actual events were never portrayed, just Piro's and Largo's extremely warped interpretations of events, and the true events could only be inferred through the intersection of their experiences. Now we only have one lens to look through, and so Largo's stuck in a dating sim.

I miss Largo's viewpoint. It'd be neat if someone made comics relaying more recent events from Largo's viewpoint.. continuing the zombie storyline.. Then again, I doubt that someone who could write Largo well would have the attention span to do something like that.

Comment from: Phalanx posted at March 17, 2005 2:57 PM

It took long enough, but I finally gave up on Megatokyo as well.

I'm ashamed to admit it took me automatically loading the comic page and not even reading the comic before closing it to realise it lost its appeal for me. It was quite a great comic before, but it does seem to have fallen from grace.

Comment from: Archon Divinus posted at April 1, 2005 3:55 PM

I still really like Megatokyo. It's not the same as it was in the begining, but thats to be expected when have the team leaves. And the changes aren't a bad thing, it's a good now as it was at the begining (except for that really ugly sweatshirt Piros wearing in Chapter 6).

Comment from: B.G.Aesop posted at May 31, 2005 10:41 PM

I just checked Megatoky again, now, and it still doesn't have the characters page up.

Comment from: sou11ess posted at June 10, 2005 4:11 PM

I didn't actually start reading MegaTokyo until about last year. I was in the manga section of a Barnes and Noble and noticed book 1 and 2 of MT there. I've heard of it online before so I picked it up and started reading. I blazed through the first book and then just couldn't get into the 2nd book. It turns out that Largo was mostly gone by the 2nd book. I tried reading online and I check the site hoping for a good strip but all I ever get now is a beautifully drawn piece of boring.

Comment from: kajafoglio posted at June 16, 2005 2:25 AM

Eep. I've just found websnark and wandered over to this right off.

Now I'm officially spooked!

I know you're right, I know nothing of MT but I do know about bumbling publishing. (hoo, boy, do I ever.) I think I'd better print this out and keep it somewhere I can see it regularly, just to keep me on track with my own stuff.

And now I want to design a scorecard for Girl Genius... Hm...

Comment from: nkuvu posted at July 18, 2005 11:41 PM

Okay, I'll admit it. MegaTokyo has lost me too. I so didn't want to be lost, MegaTokyo was one of the first webcomics I started reading.

But I have no idea what's going on, and I read it every day that it's updated. As I write this, MegaTokyo is doing an omake. The only definition I know for omake is a programming language compiler, and I'm pretty sure that this is not what's going on at MegaTokyo. One of Piro's rants may actually define the meaning of the term, but I can't find it.

I can't tell most of the characters apart, I can't remember the storyline, it's not particularly funny (which it isn't meant to be, I know, it's not a gag-a-day comic)... Why am I reading this again?

*sigh*

Comment from: Laughinman42 posted at July 31, 2005 12:56 AM

Okay, I'm a long time reader of megatokyo, and yes the storyline moves like molases, Fred has (probalby) actualy forgoten about the [story] and [charecter] links at the top of his page, but if you only go to Megatokyo.com, then you're missing the actual content of his work. He doesn't just sit around staring at TV static all that time he's not updating, if you want to know about his charecters and activites, check out FredArt, from that other link on his website. It's just packed with shiney, Anime style drawing goodness.

Comment from: Zafara posted at August 15, 2005 5:46 PM

I don't understand how Megatokyo is "sporadically updated". They have a new comic every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's been that way through the entire strip, excepting the beginning when the strip first started.

Comment from: Kalye posted at September 7, 2005 8:33 AM

Sorry pal but that is just a lame excuse. If he was so busy updating his artsite why not spend that energy and time actually doing the comic itself?

===

Eric, excellent article. It summed up everything we former readers of MT thought off. But you missed another point why MT does not appeal to much of its former audience anymore.

That is, Fred turned an excellent Satire and parody webcomic into a story based shojo manga. It would have worked well if from the very start the characters and situations were built and designed to accomodate the shojo manga framework then it would have worked very well.

But forcing a complex intricate plot with elements from its parody roots simply make the whole thing seems forced and out of place. On top of that, because of this whole mess I'm guessing that, Fred has problems writing it properly thus slowing down the progress of the comic.

I used to love Megatokyo. In fact I loved it so much that I bought vol.1 and recommend anybody to buy it. I just don't recommend buying the rest.

Comment from: mikebot posted at March 7, 2006 8:56 AM

Just thought I'd let everyone know - the characters page STILL hasn't been updated. I gave up on Megatokyo loooong ago. Way to show disregard for your profession, Fred!

Comment from: RogueShadows posted at March 30, 2006 6:50 PM

I signed up for WebKey just so I could respond to this...insanity...? Probably.

Anyway. I figure I'll deal with each point relevent to me individually. Keep in mind, everyone, that I just started reading the comic two days ago. Heard of it before but never read it.

Well now, let's begin...

1) Megatokyo's style has changed with Caston's departure

True, it's noticeable, even for a n00b like myself. That being said, it's not dramatically horribly bad. The new story focus isn't bad at all, in fact. Maybe I'm getting delusions of Love Hina, but I find it...familiar.

Which leads me to point two and three...

2) Fred's female faces all look identical, or nearly so.

I can't say this is the case for me. Perhaps I'm just use to dealing with manga and animes, but I can tell the differences between the individual characters easily enough. Let's give an example. I swear I did not cheat; this is all from memory.

Piro = Protagonist, likes shoujo manga. Classic situation: Shy huy, surrounded by girls who like him (a la Tenchi from the Tenchi Universe or Keitaro from Love Hina)

Largo = Protagonist, is t3h 1337 h@x0r, scared of Miho Yohya because she's a zombie and is evil. Possible love interest of Erika.

Tohya Miho - goth girl with emotional issues, nearly died one time, met Largo and Piro online when she was cheating to win at a game; they defeated her. (Or, Miho Tohya...haven't figured out which is her first name and which is her last yet...). By far my favorite character since the scene where Piro yells at her in the rave.

Nanasawa Kimiko - Perhaps I've remembered this one unfairly. 'Nanasawa' calls to mind 'Narusegawa,' the last name of a character from Love Hina; and Kimiko, a character in my own story. Anyway, she's a voice actress, perhaps likes Piro, and also drops coffee on people a lot.

Sonoda Yuki - 15-year-old High schooler, has a crush on Piro, wants him to teach her how to draw. Remeniscent of Maehara Shinobu from Love Hina.

Seraphim - Conscience enforcement agent; makes sure Piro stays on the straight and narrow.

Asmodeus - Sort of Seraphim's opposite. Likes to have fun.

Boo - I loved Baldur's Gate, there's no chance in Hell I could forget Boo.

Hayasaka Erika - former voice actress with huge fan following; possible love interest for Largo.

Characters beyond this show up infrequently enough that no one should be expected to remember them.

3) Megatokyo is hostile to the n00b.

Like I said, I began reading it two days ago. As of this morning, I have read all of Megatokyo. I skipped over Shirt Guy Dom but generally read everything else, including fan comics, Dead Piro art days, and so forth and so on. Also, I still had time for school work and a club after school...so as long as the n00b doesn't mind putting in a little, you know, effort, I don't see hostility. Look what I've remembered in only two days.

That being said...

4) Megatokyo needs a character/plot page

Damn straight it does. It's not at all hard to find one online (Wikipedia), but Freddy should have one up himself, even if he just steals Wiki's, or links to it. There's nothing wrong with that. The guy who runs 8-bit Theatre doesn't have a plot or character page, but he does have a link to Wikipedia's.

But, eh. Given the ease at which one can find this online, I don't see why this is incredibly pertinent. Fred probably doesn't either.

5) Megatokyo needs more updates.

Yes and no. Yes, Fred needs to be loyal to his fans. They give him bread. he gives them comics.

No, because...well, how many of you have ever tried to write anything, or draw anything? Or, perchanse, put the two together? I have. It ain't easy. But Fred has a job that he enjoys. Not many other people have that. Don't ruin it for him or you'll ruin it for the thousands of fans that he has if you break him.

6) The Pre-Caston and Post-Caston storylines don't mesh.

They don't?

Honestly speaking, I didn't notice. Well, I noticed a change, but I did not notice, say, the end of ze world. The transition ran smoothly enough, and personally, I like Largo with a personality now, beyond simply 1337 n3kkid p0w3r. I've got pleanty of satires to read: Snafu Comics, VGCats, 8-bit Theatre. But I love the overreaching plotlines as well: My Nemesis, Grim Tales from Down Below, and now, Megatokyo.

Anyway. Just my two cents.

See you around, cowboy.

Comment from: RogueShadows posted at March 30, 2006 6:53 PM

Hmm. A few erratas.

Ping! I forgot Ping. I was even thinking of her as I wrote up that list, but now forgot her. hate it when that happens.

Also, Miho Yohya should be "Miho Toohya."

eye wud lik 2 thnk hukd n foniks 4 teechig mee 2 spel

Comment from: SolarScout posted at April 7, 2006 10:11 AM

I think the slowest, most confusing androgenous (spelling?) webcomic has to be El Goonish Shive. Current storyline is about a party they're having. Planning for said party started a year ago!

Most of the characters look the same, male or female, and updating is sometimes iffy. (Dan tosses in a filler strip)

Comment from: Robert Hutchinson posted at April 9, 2006 3:22 PM

so as long as the n00b doesn't mind putting in a little, you know, effort, I don't see hostility

The vast majority of n00bs have no good reason to put in any effort. If I was just linked to Megatokyo today, no way would I put in the effort necessary to get caught up. I see a huge archive, but no good plot summary or cast page? Goodbye.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at April 9, 2006 5:22 PM

It actually requires quite a bit of effort. I needed three runs through the archives to finally keep characters straight. And I still read it regularly. I find myself unable to recommend MT to anyone, because it is so difficult to get into.

The worst part is, although some of the other errors Eric cited long ago are starting to be corrected (while not perfect, the update schedule is vastly more regular than it was when this was written), Fred seems to get rather stubborn on the point about a cast page. Reading comments he's made in the last 6 months about it, I get the sense that he's beginning to resist the idea of making a cast page because his critics use it against him. Almost like he's going "Well, I'm successful without one, so I'll show them by continuing like this."

Comment from: Jetstream posted at June 3, 2007 12:08 AM

2007 Reporting here. Gallagher still hasn't done much of anything regarding the issues stated. He now has said, flat out, that he isn't doing a character/plot page because, and I quote:

"Wanna know why i dont like making character sheets and story guides? They are a lot like resumes - small sound bytes that contain over simplified information about characters and story concepts. Does your resume really say what kind of person you are? Thats why i've always felt it was best for people to read the comic and gain thier own opinions. Most novels dont have character guides, why should a comic?"

Horse crap, I say, but that's beside the point. I still read the comic, I'll admit. I disagree with some people on a few points. It's a beautifully done comic with a fairly nifty story all things considered. The artwork is good, though he could stand to learn how to create women who don't look all alike... But then the same could be said of any Manga artist in the world. All the Sailors look the same in the manga (to me anyway) too. In fact, the only problem I really do have with the story is the pacing, not necessarily the writing. The boy needs to take a decent college course on writing and story pacing. He's not exactly adept at getting to the point.

But still the DPDs are there, at random, for no reason. He still whines about stupid things all the time and slacks off on his job.

And that's what MegaTokyo is, honestly. His job. He said as much, and uses it to support himself... So I do wonder what the hell is wrong with the guy that he can't figure out that he has to perform at his job in order to keep it... But, then, I guess he doesn't really, seeing as people buy his crap and read his comic anyway. I'm somewhat guilty myself...

Feh, this is a rant, so I'll cut it off. I suppose I'm just getting frustrated with the boy. I really never need to meet him in person, because if I do... Well, I'll start by shaking his hand...

And then I will slap the hell out of him.

Comment from: MythicFox posted at November 7, 2007 9:35 PM

In a nutshell, I stopped reading Megatokyo a long time ago because of the reasons presented here in the review, plus a revelation.

Megatokyo isn't really a webcomic any more. Fred's just cranking out these print edition dojinshis they're putting up massive banners and posters for in book stores now, and just posting them the pages one at a time online because he can. I can't really think of anything else, given that the pacing of the comic holds up marginally better when you can read them all at once. Like, say, on an archive binge or when read in print.

Or at least, it holds up marginally-better enough that the story is easier to keep up with when you read all of the pages at once, as opposed to one or two a week.

Comment from: Kat.S posted at January 24, 2009 6:20 PM

I've been a reader since the beginning. And I know all the characters. And I would say, maybe they look a little alike, but its pretty easy to tell them apart. Maybe the Snark needs to work on his Memory skills? RogueShadows, I totally agree. Have any of you tried and managed to make a webcomic that now has five published books? Have you any idea how hard that is? I work for a weekly wage and I don't think I put that much into shelving. So my point is, I guess, most of you seem to be critics. The people who can't, but complain about those who can. Zafara, thanks for making the obvious comment. Its has always been those three days.

Last point here,

You don't have to read it if you don't want to. So why bother, if you are just going to criticise? Why don't you go write a webcomic yourselves? I'm sure you'd update it everyday, and never, ever procrastinate.

Critics, huh. You can keep 'em.

Websnark

Besides, the box comes with Ravage.