GC Review #3: Counter Culture

hustlertwo

Counter Culture (reviewed 5/24/05)

The first thing to point out is that Counter Culture was restarted at the beginning of this year. For the sake of this review, I will base my scores on the new version of the strip only, since that's the one currently being updated. However, I am still unclear as to the purpose of this restart, as both the old and the new strips share the same problem: they are stunningly mediocre in virtually every aspect.

Counter Culture strives to be a witty satire on the minutia of life as a retail employee, but right away it becomes apparent that this is too lofty a goal for them. The punchlines for the comics range from severely stupid and unfunny to slightly amusing, the characters are pretty much stock stereotypes, and while there haven't been many attempts at storylines in the new series of comics, what I've seen so far in that area has been, while not horrible, certainly unappealing. This comic also occasionally departs from the standard retail-based humor to attempt to lampoon more timely subjects, such as movies or video games, but these references are stale, and usually even less funny than the standard strips are.

I'd also like to point out an issue I have with this comic that I have noticed is unsettlingly common among webcomic artists these days: the frequent use of words in place of sound effects. A laser noise is simply described as "Laser noise!!!", a bitchslap "Bitchslap!", and so forth. This sort of thing was amusing when it was new, but now it has simply become a technique for talented writers who are too lazy to put the effort into their strips, or (in this case) comic writers who simply haven't the imagination to come up with decent sound effect words anyhow. It's a real pet peeve of mine, to see good comics go bad, and bad comics made worse, because they won't put effort into minor, but vital, details such as this.

The art is decent, athough like so much of this comic, highly derivative. Though well drawn, it has no unique feel to it, and cannot stand out amongst the massive throng of Japanese-style comics around on the Net. On the plus side, a lot of the action-oriented drawings, such as lasers being fired, or elvish chainsaws being wielded, are quite vibrant and help convey a real sense of movement to the strip that is so often missing in anime comics.

Ultimately, Counter Culture is not a truly horrible comic, but it fails to bring anything to the table that's original, or even entertaining. It is simply one of the many comics littering the landscape of cyberspace that teeter between being actually good and worthwhile, or absolute crap, without ever choosing a side. I give CC a 3 out of 10; you could do worse, but why waste your time on a subpar comic when there are dozens of superior entries around?

Original rating: 3

Re-review (5/3/06)

My third review was the retail comic Counter Culture. I called the comic's story and characters unamusing, and the art somewhat enjoyable but quite derivative. However, there will be no re-review here, as shortly after the review was published, Counter Culture was brought to an abrupt end. I do know the writer somewhat, so I feel bad for the comic's demise, but at the same time, judging from the few strips that came between the review and the comic's death, it was unlikely to improve too much.

Total number of strips since the original review: Unknown (site was deleted)

Current score: 0 (my standard score for a dead comic)

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"Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity."

Dokedepoefs

I was considering going to mediation about a case.

I stated in the "conditions" of the mediation, that it be carried out by an independent party.

DRSL wrote back and said that they will now go to review, as they cannot do the mediation...

Is there anyone else that can do the mediation???

YESno