• Published:June 3rd, 2008
• Comments:7 Comments
• Category:Comics

Some of you may be familiar with the webcomic Ctrl + Alt + Del. It is what so many other webcomics are: an attempt to ape the stylings of Penny Arcade without any actual understanding of why Penny Arcade works. It’s not so much terrible as it is (as one friend put it) aggressively boring and trite. It simply thrives in mediocrity, but (somehow) not content to enjoy the undeserved bounty of semi-popularity, author Tim Buckley actually thinks he’s some kind of for-real artist, which is not only insulting but kind of sad. It’s like, oh god, guys, who has to tell him?

Luckily, you are saved from pity when you find out Buckley is, in fact, a tremendous asshole. So screw him.

See if you can follow along: The cast of CAD is 1) the self-insert lead who is belligerent and obnoxious, 2) the long-suffering roommate who is a big but sane clod, and 3) the sarcastic girl gamer who is inexplicably in love with the lead. Also, some talking animals and inanimate objects and crap like that. Is your mind blown yet?

Anyway. The reason I talk about CAD at all is because I find this glorious post on that ever-reliable source of GOTI material, Scans_Daily:

Many of you may be familiar with Tim Buckley’s webcomic, Ctrl+Alt+Del, following the lives and adventures of a bunch of gamers, most notably Ethan McManus, a sort of good natured, sort of selfish semi-loser we probably all know at least one of.

One of the running subplots has been the pregnancy of his fiancee Lilah, and she and Ethan coming to terms with (or failing to) their new responsibilities as parent’s to be.

Today’s strip changes all that…

Four images, no words, none needed.

The image is behind a cut, presumably for maximum dramatic impact.

But you already know what’s behind the cut, don’t you? Of course you do. You read things other than webcomics and have some awareness of bad writing. This dramatic plot twist THAT NO ONE SAW COMING!!!! is so tired there’s even a TV Tropes listing for it.

Because, folks, it’s real simple: most webcomics (like all serial fiction) rely on status quo, and introducing something like a baby—which dramatically alters the lives of everyone around it, for-freaking-ever—just isn’t going to fly. So you should know, from the first merest whisper of a pregnancy storyline, that it’s going to end in some kind of termination or reason to give the baby away. Miscarriage or the giving-up-for-adoption option are best, because you get some cheap gravitas: the protagonists are pitied and don’t actually have to show any responsibility for anything. Double-plus-good if the lead protagonist is male and doesn’t actually suffer anything at all, and drinks all around if that same male protagonist is the stand-in for the strip’s creator! It’s like Munchausen-by-Proxy Syndrome with an extra protective layer of “I’m just trying to tell a dramatic story” pretentiousness.

Many of the commenters rightly start right in with making fun of the strip and Buckley himself, but the original poster won’t have any of that:

Making fun of a comic about a miscarriage? Classy…

To which comes the immediate reply:

You could also say a gaming webcomic using miscarriage as a plot device isn’t exactly wearing a tuxedo, itself.

We’ll let Scott Kurtz have the final word:

hey, you COULD have your self insert lead character get forced to do some actual character growth in a story that shows him respectfully growing into a real relationship with a woman and child.

Or you could have her undergo some profound traumatic pain that can cause permanent disability but allows you to dodge changing the status quo and go right back to “joking” about how Rock Band would be cooler if you could have Mega man play drums and not actually change anything at all.

That first choice would show respect for women, storytelling as an art form, and the intelligence of your audience. We can’t have that.