Readers pick best webcomic (August 27 - September 2, 2006)
by Ross Miller 
{ Sep 5th 2006 at 6:25PM }
The winner of this week's webcomic wrapup, perennial favorite none of the above, did not show up to accept his award tonight (damn abstract entities ...), so instead we were forced to give it to the runner-up, VG Cats. Second place now goes to Gamer PALs and third was stolen by Mac Hall.The ever-present dilemma rears its ugly head once more: how do we balance popular gaming webcomics with less known, underrated entries? It's no secret that many people will vote based on brand name alone (e.g. Penny Arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Del, VG Cats, etc.) and not on the individual comic. We'd love to hear your ideas and opinions on the matter.
As always, thanks to everyone who voted, and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomics you stumble upon this week!
Breakdown:
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BIGGEN @ Sep 5th 2006 6:33PM
does anyone care about these posts? just wondering. no need to get all flamatory if you do.
Byron @ Sep 5th 2006 6:40PM
Why not do two seperate contests? Popular, and...Independent? Something like that, perhaps based on amount of visitors or notoriety. Might open up more room for the lesser known comics as well, and establish real competition between the bigger ones.
Dr.Swiss @ Sep 5th 2006 6:40PM
Well it does say that over 3000 people voted, sooo...beats me?
Byker Dave @ Sep 5th 2006 6:56PM
I think a league system sounds fair (inspired by Byron), start with the regular/popular comics in one, and the others in another. If one is consistantly bottom/top (maybe 2/3 weeks in a row) respectively then it could be moved into the other group, then you'd be able to see which are more popular/unpopular over the long run. Taking it further, then you can ditch the bottom list, because it will be full of all the ones that people don't rate as highly. Just my two pence.
ktmracer @ Sep 6th 2006 3:54PM
My favorite comics by far are Myextralife and Ctrl+alt+delete, but I don't think I've ever voted for either. I always read every webcomic before I vote. I wish everyone else would do the same.
My theory is that people are just to lazy to click on the links. Why don't you try puting all the comics in picture form after the jump rather than just links.
Markster @ Sep 5th 2006 6:58PM
Mac Hall was pretty sweet. I can't believe it only got 11%.
Waf @ Sep 5th 2006 7:08PM
As someone who has competed (and lost, hard) on the weekly webcomic round up, my suggestion is to keep Penny Arcade, VGCats etc in the round up. There is a reason why they got so popular, they are good comics. They are like the Nintendo of webcomics, sure some people buy into them on name only, but they do back it up with quality stuff.
Personally I welcome being up with the big boys. There's really nothing to winning if you know the only reason you won is because all the better competitors were barred from entering.
Chris Jeffery @ Sep 5th 2006 7:22PM
Personally as long as you continue to include lesser-known comics from week to week it's a victory. You provide tons of exposition for comics that have yet to gain a large fanbase, and whether they win or not, I'm sure the appreciate the link. I know my hits went through the roof when I was included weeks ago. You guys are doing just fine as is, IMHO.
Mitch @ Sep 5th 2006 8:50PM
It makes me wonder what it takes to make Joystiq readers happy. This whole "none of the above" crap leads me to believe that some really mean-spirited people just like throwing the whole thing off. Sure, it doesn't really matter, but I have a hard time believing *that* many people didn't find one comic to be worthy of their vote.
LordMinogue @ Sep 5th 2006 8:35PM
I'm new to the whole webcomic party and I use these posts to find new sites.
I didnt know about VG Cats until this was posted, nor did most of my friends. Now I'm a huge fan.
Thank you for posting these linups Joystiq!
Waf @ Sep 5th 2006 9:14PM
I don't have a hard time believing it at all. The comics people like the most are the ones that hit home. If a person was presented two comics, one average one about the newest megaman game, and a superb one about the newest Pokemon game and the person had only played the megaman game he will most likely find the Megaman comic to be funnier despite the other actually being better. So maybe most of the comics missed the big niche last week and the poll represented that.
From what I've seen the popular comics (PA, VGC, etc) are usually the best at making jokes that work on enough levels that even if you haven't played the game they are talking about you probably can understand what the joke was about. For all my fellow not popular cartoonists, use this as a learning tool. See what comics win and why. I learned you guys don't get your roffles from Penguins making jokes about Quantum Theory and Halo Kitty. I'm still going to make jokes like that but I know it ain't gonna win me the coveted best gaming webcomic of the week award and I'm cool with that.
Moogle @ Sep 5th 2006 9:14PM
Mitch: I think that 'sense of humor' varies a lot from person to person, and there are weeks when I think they're all terrible. This was actually a good week, many very funny ones (to me anyway, and I obviously disagree with a lot of people, seeing how high n-o-t-a got). There will always be some of each group, so I think the none-of-the-above option is worthwhile just as a gauge of what the average person thinks.
BackClocks @ Sep 5th 2006 9:44PM
The VG Cats one is awesome though.
Quaddw @ Sep 5th 2006 9:59PM
VG Cats by far is the best, the oen with the guy in the elevator with Miyamoto made me crack up so bad
Danny @ Sep 5th 2006 10:25PM
Morons. VG Cats is usually a very good comic, but tis week it was a quite weak joke that just happened to reference Zelda.
Gamer Pals was easily the best, but either people didn't read it, or voted for a generic 'zelda' or 'cute art' ideal.
Chris Jeffery @ Sep 5th 2006 10:38PM
Quaddw, that's the exact kind of voting that people are complaining about so much. You're not supposed to be comparing VG Cats as a whole to the other comics, just the specific strip that is linked. That comic with Miyamoto was indeed funny as hell but it has nothing to do with the poll.
Ipsum @ Sep 5th 2006 11:17PM
Actually, Danny, my vote went to VGCats because it brought to light an absurdity that had never occurred to me: using fire within a tree. I thought most of the other comic jokes pailed in comparison to VGCats's. Which makes me laugh the most, wins.
Quaddw @ Sep 5th 2006 10:58PM
Did I vote? No. I was just saying I like VG Cats :P
Paul @ Sep 5th 2006 11:21PM
"The ever-present dilemma rears its ugly head once more: how do we balance popular gaming webcomics with less known, underrated entries? It's no secret that many people will vote based on brand name alone (e.g. Penny Arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Del, VG Cats, etc.) and not on the individual comic. We'd love to hear your ideas and opinions on the matter."
Answer: Get more people outside the ring voting. For a perfect infinite absolute (utopian) poll, get infinite people voting, ignoring brand loyalty.
Real answer: Forget it. People will always aim for what they know and enjoy, ignoring what's the poll about, including me (hey, VGCats was much better!). You can't be objective and at the same time, ask for peoples opinion. Opinions is the exact opposite of objectiviness (sorry, english isn't my first language).
Anyway, just for heating the hearts of Sony fanboys, that's the same reason why the PS3 will sell out, even if launch with no games. People enjoy, people like, people trust. And trust, easy or not to gain, is hard to break.
Well, enough is enough.
Good night everyone.
Ipsum @ Sep 6th 2006 11:42AM
*Whichever
Scott @ Sep 6th 2006 12:06AM
I brought up seperating the big guns and the little guys awhile back and got grilled over it... well thats a little harsh but most people didnt agree with it. its an age old question for this line-up methingks.
some possible solutions:
don't include the big guys-i can bet nobody agrees with it, but the fact is that the big guys probably dont care about getting linked at joystiq as the little guys. They all read joystiq as they've pointed out in the links sectios of vgcats, or by posting articles on thier sites or by even posting here like mister tim buckley has done a few times. Little guys like me love the media attention. It increases awareness to our sites and increases readership. the big guys dont have that problem of craving new readers.
two seperate polls- one for big people and one for the little guys. theres a problem with that though as not every week do we see a game related vgcats, penny arcade or CAD. CAD has appeared twice in months, penny arcade can go weeks without a gaming comic, and vgcats is known for that as well. so theres a dilema as well.
honorable mentions for big guys- again not everyone is going to agree with this because an honorable mention doenst carry much weight. you could have "featured comics" for ones (big or small) that especially tickle you fancy for that week as you are known to do and exclude them from the poll.
Really there arent any right solutions, and really there isnt a true problem. If vgcats, penny arcade, or ctrl alt del is declared winner of a poll but people insist my comic or any other comic is better dispite that fact, that alone shows that we're doing something right.
we just gotta, you know, believe in ourselves or something. thats my two cents, anyway.
Scott @ Sep 6th 2006 12:06AM
crap! sorry about the double post, but i found a new comic that just started up. its got a real small archive, nothing note worthy just yet, but its got potential. link:
http://random-domain.com/browse.php?comicID=3
http://random-domain.com/browse.php?comicID=5
those are my favorites thus far. with that im out.
Chris Jeffery @ Sep 6th 2006 7:58AM
Sorry, Quaddw, your post sounded like you were saying VG Cats deserves the vote for being the funniest comic overall, because they've had funny strips in the past.
I do think VG Cats deserved this one, though. I think the joke was great, and it's nice to see oldschool gaming references.
thecactusman17 @ Sep 6th 2006 12:38AM
I would be quite happy to vote for more of the independant comics if they were funny. Most of them have no sense of timing, art that detracts from the humor, or just plain bad jokes.
I thought that this weeks should have gone to MacHall, and I voted for it not becaus I am very familiar with the comic (which I am) but because it was easily the most hilarious comic I saw this week. I love VGcats, to, but I didn't see the same level of humor there. Likely, I wouldn't have voted for any Penny Arcade comics from last week either.
People just need to accept that to most people, strips like PA, VGC, LG, CAD and others really are the funniest and most wel done comics of the available choices. Maybe what needs to change is the selection of the independants to comics which are actually as funny and well-done as the "big guys."
32_footsteps @ Sep 6th 2006 1:08AM
Well, here's one that isn't usually gaming-related, but something I think all of us old-school gamers can appreciate:
http://www.krakowstudios.com/archive.php?date=20060905
Chrysis @ Sep 6th 2006 2:15AM
Unfortunately I can't think of a solution to the problem however I can offer this weeks RPG-TV and hope to hell that we did something right this week.
http://www.skush.com/rpgtv/?strip=80
Quaddw @ Sep 6th 2006 9:23AM
@Scott
That Random Domain comic is pretty good
ProjectGSX @ Sep 6th 2006 10:22AM
You know, I like VGcats. But that strip was just stupid. Sorry Scott.
physcho @ Sep 7th 2006 5:07PM
if they are funny enough to be on the poll, they should be included.
as previously mentioned by a writer of one of those 'little' guys - if they good guys are barred from the competition whats the point?
ive been reading penny arcade since its inception (the bench baby woo!!!) does that mean i vote for penny arcade every week? no!!!! i vote for the one that makes me laugh the most.. is that penny arcade sometimes? yes but not always,
likewise for the other 'big' comic's. imo this is plenty of exposure. there has been a few comics that have been on a few rounds of this weekly wrapup and you know what? i bet they are perfectly happy with the new publicity.
obo @ Sep 6th 2006 11:05AM
The only answer is more Concerned!
Shane Courtrille @ Sep 6th 2006 11:44AM
Personally the reason I voted for VG.Cats was because I wasn't impressed with any of the other comics. Maybe part of the problem is that the independents aren't always that good?
+Leetbunny+ @ Sep 6th 2006 12:27PM
Personally I don't mind having smaller gaming comics mixed with the bigger gaming comics, and with that said here's the link to my latest comic:
http://leetbunny.smackjeeves.com/comics/60217/
Tiago @ Sep 6th 2006 3:38PM
Well... I think there should be fairness, so everyone should be included in the poll, even if some readers will vote for brand alone.
I think these posts should note that you are voting for THIS WEEK'S STRIP and not for the comic in general.
I think that the none of the above option should be
removed, if someone doesn't like what he's read then he simply doesn't vote. Simple!
I think some people just vote for that as a default.
I'll leave you with this week's comic:
http://www.consolewarscomic.com/index.php?comicID=26
(just had to do a pac-man joke or I wouldn't consider my comic a true gaming comic! =P)
Chrysis @ Sep 7th 2006 3:23PM
I agree with KTMracer regarding the images after the jump thing, very nice idea. And with that here's Thursdays RPG-TV...
http://www.skush.com/rpgtv/?strip=81
plufim @ Sep 7th 2006 10:44PM
Honestly - as one of the lesser known comics (gamer pals), I have no problem with the bigger guys being included. Being in the same poll as them is fine by me, and even if they inevitably beat me, to even be close to their votes gives quite a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Anyway - the next gamerpals comic (I hope this gets read before the vote) is just done, and not yet hosted on n-europe yet. It should be up there by the end of the day though (in time for the vote) here:
http://www.n-europe.com/special.php?sid=gamerpals&page=20
If not, it's currently on my personal webspace here:
http://www.plufim.com/revo/revo20.jpg
But my personal site isn't as reliable as n-europe, so if the comic is there and I get included in the next vote, then link there instead... plus it'll make the guys of N-europe happy to be getting the hits :P
Linkman2004 @ Sep 9th 2006 6:29PM
Eh, I don't mind running up against the big guys. It just makes you feel that much more special. Even though Penny Arcade will cream me every time. Oh, well. That's just the way things are. I definitely enjoy the publicity, though. :)
Anyways, here are my best game comics of the week(well, in my opinion).
Game Boyz - Master Idiot
http://gameboyz.smackjeeves.com/comics/59631/
Game Boyz - Console Wars 2
http://gameboyz.smackjeeves.com/comics/60889/
Game Boyz - 1337 $ch001
http://gameboyz.smackjeeves.com/comics/61131/