Those are in Japan too! And are therefore not racy. Man Salsa, I'm having to explain everything to you!

Hahaha… Mansalsa.

ifelldownthestairs
Hahaha… Mansalsa.

Does it come with Tortilla chips?

Well I should hope so!

what's with that new anonymus comment… it's the stupidest arguement as of yet…


oh, and I'll have some of that man salsa… if it tastes any good

Please tell me that swim suit picture was edited?
No one would put something so laughably pathetic in a comic deliberately would they?
You drew in the jiggle lines! You must have!
No one would be dumb enough or crass enough to make a page like that….

….would they?

well i've drawn jiggly swimsuit girls myself…. but never something so blatantly obvious XD

“Slow m jiggle” and “Jigglo” XD

No, it's real. Her thumb's also backwards, too, which is (sadly) the first thing I noticed about that panel.

Looks like the last post is mine! Hahaha! Suck on my closing statement!

The main point I was going to make Hark made already, I think, about 400 paragraphs ago. Saying something is cool because it's legal somewhere else doesn't make it cool in the society appraising it. There's no age limit to sexual intercourse in Thailand. So if I made a comic about a 20 year old man and his 10 year old bride, does that make it socially acceptable here in America even though the comic takes place in Japan? I can see me making that argument in front of a federal judge, and getting thrown in prison.

I remember when Hark reviewed my comic. I was crushed. I was devastated. I literally cried and lost a lot of sleep that night.

I very nearly gave up comic making altogether. I read it again just now, a year later, and still got depressed, so I understand the pain of a negative review; but if you'll notice, I took nearly all of the negative things I heard and tried to improve on it. I made myself attempt backgrounds, I made sure to ALWAYS draw both eyes, always shaded, and did my best to make the joke of an excuse of a poorly thought out plot a consistent joke at least. But who cares.

Don't let a negative review ruin your life. It's easy to think your comic is perfect when the only people who you ask about it are fans. They'll tell you whatever you want to hear. You're the naked emperor and they're promising you you're wearing robes of the finest silk. It's another thing to ask people who aren't fans what they think. It's from them that you'll get an accurate view of what people perceive as your faults. Don't take a bad review as an insult, take it as a wake-up call. Not everyone loves your comic, and for valid reasons. You can't win them all, but hell, you might be able to win a few more.

I was actually quite upset at the review these guys did of my comic. They weren't nearly harsh enough, so I couldn't pitch a fit and set my devoted minions upon them, thereby increasing my hit count.

Bastards.

ifelldownthestairs
I seriously doubt that Hark was trying to rouse pity. He merely pointed out that taltamir seemed more interested in attacking who he was arguing with, rather than making an actual point.

Yes, insulting someone through the web is a lot easier than doing it in their face. That is the same with Fanaticism.
The problem is that when you take the bait and start insulting the other person. You lose a lot of your own credibility.
And in my opinion when somebody does that, (s)he has just stooped down to a level where the opinion doesn't matter anymore just who can shout the hardest.
It becomes a mud throwing war. with some mud stinking like faeces…

A good reviewer knows when not to insult the fans or haters for being immature pricks, because that fact is at that point already evident. And doing so makes you look the same as them.

your other points are valid, and I can agree on that this forum is a good thing.
Seeing as how author ninja is handling this thing, I will probably stop reading the comic, though.

What seems to me as 1 of the most important things in getting a review. Is being able to live with it,secondly do something with it and third don't start commenting that the review they gave you is bad and completly utterly wrong.

harkovast
Also note that his rant, while very very funny, is prefixed with a lie.
The webcomic review comic has never and will never review comics at random.
We only review comics that ask for it.
Mob Ties' author requested to be reviewed, and he was.
Be careful what you wish for is the lesson there!

Yeah, I read that… gone from my favourite list now… to bad.
The review-list is on your forum and updated regularly.

critique is something everybody should be able to live with. And seriously everybody on this world who does something creative has had a bad review.



————————————————————————————-
Poo flinging is almost only seen in behaviour of monkeys in captivity. it was through a release program that this behaviour was introduced in the wild.

Monkeys started throwing with poo in a zoo, to stop people from smiling and showing their teeth. They threw with everything and one day one monkey found out throwing with his own faeces worked!
Before that it didn't exist in the culture of apes. This behaviour is not seen in the wild much. (for some strange reason in the wild rocks and branches work a lot better)
This behaviour has been declining in use by the monkeys in the wild and in the zoos. After they found out what caused the monkeys to throw poo towards the visitors.

Smiling monkey ain't a happy monkey

(srry studying biology couldn't help myself :P)

I am frankly a little disturbed by the idea that criticising sexual depictions of 15 year old kids is now being called “bigotry” and trying to force my beliefs on other cultures.
I remember an episode of South Park where NAMBLA used similar arguments to defend their life style choice.
That episode was a joke, Mob Ties fans are serious.
Wow! Just wow!

Mob Ties features sexualised depictions of a 15 year old.
If you look at pictures of 15 year olds and find it sexy, you have problem.
The fact there is another culture (of which you are not a member) that thinks its okay means nothing to me.

Weird thing, when I researched Japanese culture for Harkovast, the legal age at which young girls can marry and the uniforms that young girls wear for gym never came up. I wonder why I never felt the need to research these particular aspects and then make them the focus of my comic?
How odd! I guess I that respect I am just different from Mob Ties target audience.

To finish this conversation off, here is limerick I wrote about my experiences with this comic-

The art in Mob Ties was quite rough
And reading the archive was tough
But I prefer when its boring
To when Mika starts whoring
I don't want to see kids in the buff!

I've been holding this in for a while. But I got to make this point. What if it is a 15 year old looking at a sexy picture of a 15 year old?

harkovast
15 YEARS OLD!

I drew a nude 10 year old for one of my comics but it was for a purpose, not fanservice.

Looking at “racy” pictures of 15 year olds doesn't bother me as much because I'm about the same age. But pointless porn?

There's a lot of comics that just keep going on with their comic too long. Sometimes things need to end.

Don't become a JK Rowling here guys.

Even though she did it without fucking up.


You guys really raised some shit.
…
You should do this more often. :D

People can yell at me too if they don't like how much this makes me laugh.

Niccea
I've been holding this in for a while. But I got to make this point. What if it is a 15 year old looking at a sexy picture of a 15 year old?

Crom knows that I drooled for several very beautiful schoolmates when I was 15 and how many fantasies I had with Rei Ayanami (yeah… I know…). Again, when I was 15.

Of course that it's OK for a 13-to-17 years old to feel tingly for a Selena Gomez in bikini pic.

A teenager sometimes is just a huge egocentric ball of hormones and horniness. They cannot help but feel that way about attractive people. It's normal.

I just have a problem with adults jerking of to Miley Cyrus and Twilight moms screaming for the shirtless werewolf dude… it's been said many times, but I found it CREEPY!

Teens sometimes can't control their impulses.

Adults should know better.

Now, the oversexualization in some of those pictures IS questionable also.

Niccea
I've been holding this in for a while. But I got to make this point. What if it is a 15 year old looking at a sexy picture of a 15 year old?

A perfectly good point. However, the author is not 15 years old, he's at least 24. I assume so, because he referred to having drawn the same way for that long, and whenever people talk about doing something for a long time they often claim to have done so since birth. Let's just hope that he didn't start drawing when he was 20.

Author Ninja is around thirty, he mentioned it in one of the recent fillers.

@Hark: Nope, look at the URL, it's straight from the archives. Sorry buddy.

Good heavens, what a ruckus! And in the end, all it accomplished was moving Mob Ties from the #3 position to #2. Author Ninja ought to be very happy with this review. Amelius better look out. If this continues, he might de-throne Charby the Vampirate. I guess there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Yes… and then Amelius will be coming to us for a review… and the cycle begins again!! AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Once it dies down, it won't be so bad. It's just getting a lot of hits with all of us looking at it to see if we agreed with the review or not.

I am curious to see how you guys would handle Charby as I quite like it. But even if Amelius decided to get a review it would take forever to come around, am I right?

I remember an episode of, I think, “Lie to Me” a show where one of the characters is very good at reading someone's reactions to see if they are lying. A different character was being charged with having sex with a minor. Thing is, he didn't know she was a minor because, well, she didn't look like one. Some people mature faster than others. There is a scene where the person being charged is asked if he finds this girl in a picture attractive, she doesn't look like a minor but he thinks she is. He says he doesn't but is lying.

My point is this: If a fifteen year old looks like… uh… some hot celebrity (help me out here, I can't think of one specifically that's supposed to appeal to everybody!) then of course older men are going to find her attractive. But when you are constantly told that she is 15… well… those older men should know better.

As far as this goes to the relationship between Mika and Sid in the comic… it sounds kinda like that. Or at least, that seems to have been the intention.

I think that would be just fine and all. Until the fanservice comes in and makes it worse, as if it wants the readers to lust after the fifteen year old. That is not necessarily true, but it can easily be seen that way. I seem to be under the impression that earlier in the comic Mika was not drawn so sexualized, as one would think befits a 15 year old, but I can't remember for sure. However the beach and hot tube issues were the low points (as in it got really bad) in terms of fan service.

Having a fifteen year old in sexualized situations (not, I repeat, not sex) can be done well and tastefully handled. See Lolita, which is a good book but it creeps you right out to read it (I don't believe the book describes sex between the characters, but implies it is there). But as soon as it brings the reader into a similar situation with that character (Now it's the reader staring at her under aged breasts, obviously this is easier to do in a visual medium)… a certain line is crossed. Not necessarily THE LINE, but a line nonetheless. The crossing of that line does put me personally off, as I said earlier, and it definitely seems to be one of Hark and Kev's buttons that should not be pressed.

There, I've described my opinion on the fanservice, though I tend to glaze over it anyway, in greater depth. And of course it took the form of a rant. It was triggered by the “If 15 year old lusts after 15 year old” talk. A 15 year old can look like a 20 year old sometimes. Does that mean the 20 year old lusting after the 15 year old who looks like a 20 year old but doesn't know she's a 15 year old is doing something wrong? Maybe. I dunno. Sorry for the wall of text.

Eh, I wasn't gonna say anything about the comic but might as well. Well, I didn't like the comic, I never seen the “Fan Service” or anything but I just didn't like it. I could go on and on about the comic but I'll just list 3 things I didn't like.

1) I couldn't follow the story. At All

2) Fillers. I don't like ‘em and I think the only purpose they should be in a webcomic is as a cover (like a regular comic).

3) last but not least(sort of) is it’s boring! I don't know if it's a side-effect of me not getting the story but that's just how I feel.

So, that's all I'm gonna say.

Honestly I don't think we moved him to number 2. We dont have that many readers, and its been at number 2 before, not that long ago.
I think it is just natural shuffling around on the front page.
Certainly he sent us a lot more hits then we sent him (and gave us more laughs.)

Byth1, I know exactly what you mean! This comic was boring me to tears until it I got to the fan service and then it started grossing me out.

Niccea you do raise an interesting point. My wife sugested that the author might be young himself and that's why he drew it. But he is not, he is an older guy, around thirty, with a gut on him (he's posted pictures of himself as filler a couple of times.) The fact he is the same age and build as Sid (before Sid grew huge) should make you all rather nervous.)
In answer to your question I would say teenagers can (and do) lust after teenagers, but 30 year olds should not!

Reflecting on the string of reviews of ‘bad comics’ lately, I kinda want to see a ranking list by you guys on where the things you've reviewed stand against each other. Hark and Kev's Wall of Depreciation or something to that effect.

Chernobog
Reflecting on the string of reviews of ‘bad comics’ lately, I kinda want to see a ranking list by you guys on where the things you've reviewed stand against each each other. Hark and Kev's Wall of Depreciation or something to that effect.

This actually sounds like a pretty cool idea.

Chernobog
Reflecting on the string of reviews of ‘bad comics’ lately, I kinda want to see a ranking list by you guys on where the things you've reviewed stand against each each other. Hark and Kev's Wall of Depreciation or something to that effect.

We've been toying with that idea for a while now, though preferably with comics we actually liked (talking again about comics we hated could make us look like even BIGGER jerks…). A thought was to celebrate our year anniversary (Hark and I are very proud of our relationship) with a comic like that, like each picking a favorite comic out of those we've reviewed, or something like that. We're not sure yet, though.

Sounds like an awesome idea! God, I'm glad i'm 17…..


However, now you guys will have to wonder how a guy my age has a comic about drinking

douhugal
Poo flinging is almost only seen in behaviour of monkeys in captivity. it was through a release program that this behaviour was introduced in the wild.

Monkeys started throwing with poo in a zoo, to stop people from smiling and showing their teeth. They threw with everything and one day one monkey found out throwing with his own faeces worked!
Before that it didn't exist in the culture of apes. This behaviour is not seen in the wild much. (for some strange reason in the wild rocks and branches work a lot better)
This behaviour has been declining in use by the monkeys in the wild and in the zoos. After they found out what caused the monkeys to throw poo towards the visitors.

Smiling monkey ain't a happy monkey

I had no idea. And now I learned something. Can someone turn this into some sort of convoluted metaphor that can be used to describe this situation? Because that would be fantastic.

A smiling monkey is not a happy monkey, which remind me of sharks, which eat something when they smile. So if the fans enjoy something, expect any criticisms to be eaten alive.

Something like that?

Sorta. Except the rabid fans aren't smiling when they eat the criticism. They sort of make a face like they're going to vomit and can't believe they have to eat it. Because it tastes gross to them and so they frown. And maybe cry and little, because they're really upset. I guess they could be upside-down sharks or something, because then they'd have frowny-faces when eating.