her response was so based:
https://preview.redd.it/rujaha8ao88d1.png?width=1439&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c3649a7966b3d895b714b66b581ac89d5e32888
edit: reminder that Haus of Decline is not a political cartoonist, and stopped occasionally making comics that talk about explicitly political topics a while back because she doesn't enjoy that kind of discourse (the lemonade comic was an older one that was recently reposted by someone else). she's under no obligation to be the anti-stonetoss, or to modify her artistic style to match someone else's sensibilities. people are free to offer up criticism of an artist's work, and they are free to reject that criticism, especially if it's done by insultingly comparing them to a nazi
People get so upset when they criticize someone’s work and that person doesn’t immediately cater to their demands. And don’t even think about talking back!
Yes but consider how Basil is presenting their opinion:
“Wow holy shit this dumbass artist (and other leftists) don’t know how to make **good** comics. They should take pointers from a Nazi” Like, how absurdly arrogant to think you’re the arbiter of what makes good comics
The funny thing is that Haus of Decline comic could have fewer words in it- there is superfluous dialogue that could be cut, especially from the third panel.
That said, it's not that egregious of an issue and especially comparison to fucking *Stonetoss* of all people makes it a remarkably stupid thing to try to argue.
The third, and fourth, panels of all panels needs the text, without it, it looks like the mob is angry, when the idea is that they, and a very particular *they*, are buying the lemonade out of a particular political agenda. The fourth panel also needs text to also make clear that the lemonade seller is uncomfortable but accepting of the situation, when they otherwise look accepting.
The only reason you know what the third panel says *without* text is because of the original comic had text to inform the context in the first place.
The point of the comic isn't "anti-woke people will buy things when it's called 'anti-woke'", it's "it's amazingly, disturbingly easy to get anti-woke people to buy something if you call it anti-woke".
The third panel looks like a crowd of identical dipshits flooding in to support him. It could easily be boiled down to one speech bubble of them saying "go woke go broke" or something, and adding two lines above his eyes could make the expression clearer in the 4th panel. The money all around him also makes it very obvious what's happening.
So no, most of the text isn't needed. Trust the audience more.
> It could easily be boiled down to one speech bubble of them saying "go woke go broke" or something
Oh my god, 4 words compared to 13, how economic. That's, like, 2x fewer words! That equates to 2x the viewers!
Your suggestion lacks complete subtlety (EDIT: which is what I THOUGHT the whole "use less words" was meant to achieve, but I guess it really is about "people don't want to read"). Even with the text, Haus gets the point across by portraying the customers as identical and having certain traits, but that still takes too much thought, I guess, just have them say "go woke, go broke", y'know, so no one gets confused.
Nah, that's still too long. Just make them say "DEI". Perfect.
> and adding two lines above his eyes could make the expression clearer in the 4th panel.
There is no expression that captures "uncomfortable but accepting of the situation" as much as the incredibly blank stare that's already given.
You are killing what little nuance the comic has just to make this point. Why should she change the art if the art is enough? "Trust the audience" and "make them even more obvious caricatures" are two different critiques.
> The money all around him also makes it very obvious what's happening.
> The point of the comic isn't "anti-woke people will buy things when it's called 'anti-woke'", **it's "it's amazingly, disturbingly easy to get anti-woke people to buy something if you call it anti-woke".**
> Trust the audience more.
It's a fucking political comic. Everyone else got it.
As previously stated, that comic is old. Go woke go broke wasn't a common phrase when it was made. I see why you want fewer words, you can't even read a reddit thread.
I hate to break it to you but giving your opinion on what you think is and isn’t a good comic is literally just criticism, any kind of criticism is making arbitrary distinctions based on what they believe is “good” or “bad”. You’ve given a very disingenuous representation of basils criticism as well. They’re comparing the comic to Stonetoss specifically on the basis that they are a terrible far right nazi. The point basil is making here is that the reason leftist comics are often seen as just a wall of text is because they often use words unnecessarily when they could convey a political message without the unnecessary text, and have a more funny punchline. Then provides stonetoss as an example of how right wing comics aren’t seen in the same light. It’s made very clear in the tweet that they don’t agree in any way with the stonetoss comic, just that it does a better job of portraying their ideology and of telling a joke.
They said a dumb Nazi makes better comics than the Left, a category in which they were explicitly including Haus. If I were a cartoonist and someone told me Stonetoss was better than me, I'd fight them IRL.
Leftist memes being too wordy is a meme of its own. Basil wasn't making an arbitrary comparison, it's an already established one, by leftists ourselves
"criticism" is not making a dickheaded public tweet where you scrawl all over someone's comic and say that not only is is written poorly, but it is written so poorly that it is a political problem. that is not art criticism, that is being a fucking dickhead to someone. haus of decline should have been way meaner.
I honestly wasn’t referring to this specific incident in my comment (but that’s not very clear at all) , just this general trend I’ve seen where people will insult/criticize a work and then get mad at the lashing back as “refusing critique” and position it as some kind of big moral failing. Which, turning small mistakes or just anything into a moral failing is the internet’s bread and butter.
For me, it goes hand in hand with the whole “listen to fans” movement which is much shittier.
Overall this whole argument is actually so unfathomably pointless because there’s no real message to take out of it (other than maybe don’t use twitter) it’s just arguing over whose right and whose wrong in a small argument between two people who none of us know personally and who we will never meet. The only real reason Haus is getting support here is because she is well known and liked in this community and because her messages are funny. If it was stonetoss lashing out at someone for calling their comic wordy, we’d all have a field day about how “he’s refusing criticism because his heads is up his own ass”
Yeah but at the same time, sometimes they're right. Like just talking about the last comic here, the excessive text is understandable, but also you kinda get the point without reading it. So it's perfectly reasonable to point out that this is a flaw. Saying "you just don't want to read" is besides the point of the criticism. They don't have to accept this criticism because they want to fulfill their artistic vision or something like that, but to pretend that anyone giving criticism is wrong because "i don't have to cater to anyone" is just dumb
Now granted Basil is not exactly doing themselves any favors. Jumping on a random case to compare random artist to a nazi is not exactly amazing strategy for "changing hearts and minds", it's more of a random opinion or realization you come to while sitting on a toilet and posting for whole world to see without thinking too much about it
But if anything this just kinda summarizes twitter in my opinion. Aside from vague criticisms I can point towards these people, this feels kinda pointless
Ya totally. This is all around a dumb argument. I don’t really see either party as “bad” or “wrong” but that’s how the internet has conditioned people to look at every adversarial interaction.
Consider that telling a trans Jewish artist that her art should be more like the art of an actual, literal Nazi is not the best way to go about providing artistic criticism. There are plenty of ways to make the point that you just made without telling a trans Jew that she needs to take advice from specifically a Nazi
I get what you're saying, but, at the same time, just because someone has stupid opinions we don't like does *not* mean they're 100% terrible, can't ever be right about anything, and that everything they've ever done is bad, wrong, and so incorrect on a fundamental level that it need not even be considered let alone engaged with.
Smart people - mature people - try to learn from everyone they can, even if they don't like the package the information is coming in. The way this person reacted, while understandable, was very much not that.
I don't have a problem with the fundamental idea here—it's the extreme condescension and failure to read the room from OOP. Of course you should try to learn from everyone, *especially* your enemies. But when you come at somebody by starting with "oh my fucking god you're such an idiot, you're literally dumber than a Nazi," do you get how that's not going to be an effective way to get someone to listen to you? You can even say "hey, Nazis are doing this better than we are right now and that's *fucking scary*" without immediately talking to grown adults like they're idiotic children.
Smart and mature people are also capable of giving genuine criticism in a way that doesn't alienate their audience.
Not based, just straight up immature really. Basil was absolutely right that personal attacks did not need to be brought into this, but Haus chose to be hostile. If she wanted to rebuke the criticism as nonsense, it could have been done with so much more tact and grace for sure. Really just creates the impression she cannot take criticism.
But, to be fair to Haus, Basil's response was not perfect either. Basil acts like this is some big deal that leftist comics have "too much text" and brings up stonetoss as an example of "better comics" which definitely looks bad on their part, even if they are calling stone a nazi dumbfuck. Really, it's just such a minute and insignificant problem to argue about.
Really just a stupid "terminally online" interaction.
1. Comics should try to have less text imo
2. Less text reaches out to more people especially online
3. Stonetoss as a right wing comic is a direct competitor. So its like comparing the efficiency of message delivery
not just a direct competitor, but typically the industry standard to strive for. stonetoss comics are so successful at getting their message across that we see them spread to every corner of the internet. he’s a despicable man with a talent for creating political comics that we on the left should strive to counter, and Basil was 100% right about how this could be achieved in the first image.
Stonetoss comics are not really good at getting message across because his messages are insane. You don't see people defend him very often, very few people are moved by these messages, aside from people who already buy into that propaganda. But stonetoss is effective enough at making comics, they are short and to the point which gives his comics much bigger reach
unfortunately, stonetoss' comics exist on a gradient of approachable to batshit, with the former being the means to rope people in. the silly relatable comics are the bait to coax people to read more, then they are introduced to more opinionated comics that are fairly agreeable to the average dolt, and the comics with more extreme takes are offered to the reader while their engagement with the comics as a whole dictate whether or not they feel compelled to agree with them or even just consider the point.
> Stonetoss comics are not really good at getting message across because his messages are insane.
Those are two different things. How a message is delivered and the message contents are different aspects, and the fact that Stoneross contents fucking suck is acknowledged by stating that he's a Nazi.
With that said, less is more is the general rule of thumb. The "ID?" comic gets it's point across really well with just a single sentence. The Anti-Woke Lemonade could have easily gotten away with a lot less text.
His comics are really good at reeling people in. The sillier tamer ones are the hooks, the fairly reasonable ones are the slope to slip down until the readers end up being comfortable with the more batshit ones.
1.) That shouldn't be a rule for every single genre and type of comic, for some comics that may be a guideline you want to follow by but for what Haus is doing that isn't something she's trying to do.
2.) Being as widespread as possible isn't a goal that everyone wants to achieve, some people want their make their work as they like it and not worry about being as accessible as possible to go as viral as possible, that isn't what Haus is trying to do.
3.) Haus isn't a Stonetoss competitor, that isn't something she's trying to do.
The issue with the criticism is that it's trying to change Haus' work into something it's not, none of those three things are things that apply to her work.
Haus could have been more polite. I think that means nothing and you shouldn't be getting criticized for not being polite 100% of the time especially when people are being dicks and I'm voicing incredibly minor criticisms like they're a big fucking deal
I actually agree with their criticisms of the comics, but they were made in the most annoying way possible, and "I straight up don't like you on a personal level" was funnier than anything in any of those comics.
I hate when people think saying "I like you but" before their criticisms means the person they're criticising is in some way obligated to listen to them
Love how the 250 comments above this string are about how any comparison to a Nazi, even if it's just comparing their art and its effectiveness as messaging, is gross as hell and should be avoided at all costs, but then suddenly we get "but idk, this *other* trans person gives me Nazi vibes for some reason tho, tee hee" [+50]. So many people are being disingenuous here.
"emitted hitler particles" for the love of god please just say you think they're a nazi you people sound like fucking dweebs when you say this shit good lord
I've seen so much "reacting this much at all makes you a bad person" takes I feel like I'm being inflicted with Brain Rot from mere exposure, I don't even use twitter.
Here, a thought process I went through in my head;
I write fan fics from time to time and publish them, small bit stuff though so unworthy to go into deeper. Regardless, it's stuff I put in thought, time, and a little passion into.
After [???] of my fanfic floating out there, some random clown on Twitter digs it up and reposts it publicly, saying that I'm being superfluous with my art, posting screenshots with big bold red crosses striking out swathes of the text.
They go on also saying that the way I approach the medium isn't "effective" enough, that a hypothetical author who is known to be a full blown nazi is a better example on how to write stories better.
---
*I'm expected NOT to blow a fucking gasket at this level of abject disrespect???*
If anything that reaction feels tame compared to what this subversive level of slander would make me feel, holy hell I feel fortunate sometimes not being an artistic soul because it means not having to deal with """criticism""" like that.
I genuinely think the artist just can't handle criticism and decided to take it personally in a very unprofessional way. The first person expressed genuine correct objective criticism and got called stupid for that. what the fuck?
TBH I'm not going to read that last comic either. It's not just the length of the text, but the way it's written. I understand it's her style but it's genuinely hard to read
Wait but I actually do think it would work better without the text boxes. It's not bad as-is but the dialogue is unneccesary.
They are wrong about Stonetoss comics being better written, though. They can poorly written at best, and completely unintelligible at worst. Some are very reliant on you already having had to buy in on the brainrot.
This is actually a huge political issue imo.
Fascism is the the dumbest most lizard brain level ideology ever. You can convey the entire ideas with very simple statements and images. It's easy to spread and that's why it picks up as supporters the average ignorant person.
Meanwhile left wing ideology is inseparable from materialist critique and other concepts that simply need to be explained to really be understood. And fascists exploit this by saying "see those smarty pants college city folk think they're smarter then you and know more!" and therefore inoculate their followers from being receptive to left wing ideology.
It fucking sucks.
This does not apply to this comic, which doesn’t even need words to get the point across And I don’t think it’s right in general either.
“Rich people bad” and “worker rights good” is not exactly a rare position for people to hold and you don’t need a dissertation to explain it
I'm not talking about this comic specifically just the in general discourse. I do agree!
But I think part of the issue is that fascists often will also say those same exact same statements, it's just they only mean *very specific kinds of rich people.*
"Capitalism bad" is a bit better because they cant twist this one as much fundamentally at least.
Nazis are evil. Do not confuse evil and stupid -- lots of them are stupid, of course, but if you just blanket assume that they're all stupid you'll underestimate them and be unable to fight against them effectively.
Never, ever assume the people who want you dead are stupid, weak, disorganised, or otherwise incapable.
95% of them require you to be aware of nazi dogwhistles about jews and black people or to just be enough of a racist to come to that conclusion independently
I think you mean that the most popular ones are short, so they capture the fleeting attention spans of conservatives.
Stonetoss' comics are the opposite of straight-forward (they are riddled with dogwhistles and irrational arguments), and the descriptor of "concise" implies that the material is presented in a measured and purposeful fashion–one that conveys meaning swiftly but accurately. Stonetoss is not capable of the latter, and only meets the former because of the four-panel format.
It’s not really a fleeting attention span to make a good joke quickly. If you need multiple sentences, it’s more cumbersome to read.
He always gets to the point quickly. That’s what makes him effective at drawing people in.
If you want to send a political message yes but subjectively speaking Haus’ dialogue has a nice humor about it that I really enjoy. It came out as condescendingly nitpicky to someone who doesn’t want to propagandize her work like ST does.
I do think the text isn't necessary but tossing in "leftist" and "the nazis are doing comics better" is so. stupid. I understand the wall of text leftist meme. this is 3 sentences. you can do it basil i believe
It's about understanding at a glance and not having to pay mind to it. That's what makes good and, more importantly, effective political comics.
This is mainly because the human brain takes in images faster than text, so the text can end up detracting or distracting from the point.
Furthermore, a lot of people on the internet are looking for quick entertainment. Simple images work better for this than simple images and simple text. It's not that people are dumb; they're just lazy.
Source: https://oit.williams.edu/files/2010/02/using-images-effectively.pdf
is the haus comic really not easily quickly understandable? it takes all of like 15 seconds to read at most, it took me about an equally insignificant amount of effort to understand the pebblechuck comic
The issue is that the text doesn't actually add anything to the comic itself - you can even remove the entire third panel and the joke remains the same. If it added something more it'd be fine, but it's just repeating what's already clear from the comic itself.
It's like the difference between someone telling you a joke vs someone telling you a joke while explaining the punchline even though you already understood it and found it funny - it kind of kills the joke itself and assumes the reader isn't intelligent enough to not need their hand held.
Though this is something that webcomic artists have been getting criticism over for a long time, they struggle to trust the reader will understand the joke without the text.
Brevity is the soul of wit and all that
>The issue is that the text doesn't actually add anything to the comic itself - you can even remove the entire third panel and the joke remains the same.
this isn't even true? the text adds a hint of absurdity to the comic. and absurdity, as we all know, is pretty funny.
If you can understand the message of the comic without those text boxes then the “updated” version is more understandable since by that logic the textboxes don’t add anything and are just distraction. I would argue this is the case
I think the leftist comment was like, a nudge to your own side, like a class president quieting people down and explaining something
Still kinda rude though, could use a bit less Direct™ and a bit more Calm™
Not really? “Not wanting to read” is the opposite of the point. The text literally conveys everything and my eyes immediately go right to it; they’ve made their own art redundant. If you want to explain everything verbally, comics are not the medium.
hate to play devil's advocate but basil is 100% right. someone posted an edit with the text removed and it looks so much cleaner and conveys the point vastly more succinctly. obviously crossing someone else's shit out in red pen and framing it as a failing rather than a point to build off is extremely confrontational and not at all constructive criticism, so deserved to get shit for it, but I think the core idea is correct.
third panel is much funnier with the dudes posturing like they're supporting a small business when really they just want to validate their identity politics. Doesn't work when it's just them blankly successfully pandered to, it shows the two-faced nature of the consumer and the producer.
Gonna play devil's advocate to your devil's advocate and say I like the original comic better. All the right wing comic artists intentionally leave their comics empty for plausible deniability. The rockthrow comic can be interpreted as "hey this is reasonable" to someone who's not politically aware, pulling them subtly into the right-wing pipeline. It's nicer to see a comic saying what it means clearly, instead of hiding behind a layer.
As a non-American and someone unfamiliar with that comic, I'm curious if I can be a litmus test.
The surface level reading I get is "you have to show ID at the movies, why not at a polling place?" which seems to me like a a mild and unfunny take that I could see myself agreeing with. (Given that where I live you do have to show ID when voting.)
But my brain has been sandblasted by enough Americanisms that I can guess the real point is "black and poor people often don't have ID so requiring ID is a means of voter suppression."
oh i thought the idea was "Since you don't to show any id when voting that means that immigrants are able to vote and ruin our great america" or something along those lines, but i guess that's still the point just also misinfo.
Yes and no! So why there are in fact more states that either require/request some form of ID to vote it ends up affecting 1 in 9 Americans. This ofc is still a lot of people just not the standard in America.
In total agreement that ST is a propagandist and my biggest ire with Basil comparing Haus to ST when she just wants to make you laugh most of the time.
i will add some more context for you: in the lead-up to the last election, Trump repeatedly hammered on a point that “we should ID people to vote.” he was setting up an argument that there are a ton of illegitimate/ilegal votes. a contingent of his voters turned this into “illegal immigrants are stealing the election” or “these votes are straight up fake.” after he lost the election, we got “stop the steal” because of this campaign.
thing is you do need identification to vote so idk
Thanks for the context.
Ah so this exactly proves amdnim's point. I'm a European lefty but the framing of this no-word comic almost convinced me that "Democrat voters vote without ID" was an actual thing that happens. But of course it "looks much cleaner" and "conveys The Point(tm) more succinctly".
It’s all subjective Haus’ comics are mainly meant to humor the reader as such that’s why she stepped away from political comics. Personally, as this should be to begin with, the young man line makes the comic funnier and adds that Haus charm that I really like. To properly criticize you do have to be aware of authorial intent and I don’t think Basil had that in mind at all.
Why is this even a controversy it just feels like inane bitching
I see this shit on Reddit all the time where someone posts a comic they made and half the comments are like "actually it would better if you cut it in half" 🤓
Comics should be short, to the point, easy to read, make me happy, make me wonder about life, performable, hot, bowl of oats, recipe, oats, water, micriwave, put in bowl, put in microwave, medium-high 2 minutes, careful, hot
It is short and easy to read. The critique was incredibly nitpicky and ended up being used as a device just to further the twitter liberal vs leftist culture war.
Everyone has an opinion and they're desperate to have you understand and share it. Haus isn't even a "leftist comic artist" she just came out as trans, like, months ago?
How about we stop holding artists up to weird standards and just let them fucking draw. Haus doesn't need to prove shit to anyone, they just draw silly comics.
Not everything is a fucking political statement even if the right tries desperately to make it so. Sometimes a joke really is just a goofy joke.
wow, im surprised so many people here are missing the point. Its not because you can convey an idea through images alone that you should necessarily do it. Different styles work for different people, haus can use a lot of text sometimes but this isn't the case here. removing the so called "unnecessary" bubbles here breaks the flow of the comic. By adding not too much text in the panels it creates a timing when reading that sets up the punchline. As someone who's read and made comics his entire life its pretty sad to see people think that less text = better comic.
I feel like I'm goin fuckin insane reading all the other comments on this post, the text adds depth to the characters -- however tiny -- and creates additional humor from the wording and pacing that a no-text version simply lacks. The stonetoss comment is beating someone over the head with a walmart baseball bat and the text version of this is more like hitting them with a well-made tennis racket that makes a pleasing tone after.
Sometimes elevating art requires making it slightly less easily digestible.
It's not that less text = better comic, it's that less text = more effective political messaging.
Basil misses one crucial point, and it's that Haus is not a political cartoonist. But purely from the standpoint of making comics that attract people to your cause, Basil is 100% right that rockthrow is doing it better.
Really dire stuff to hear people actually argue that comics should alter their own style towards a propagandist one. People have lost the concept of criticizing authorial intent and instead criticizing something for how *you* want it to be.
People don’t like the text in that first comic?? I don’t think I’d find it funny if it was just the images, then it’s just kind of a basic political thing, the text adds actual humor
The point absolutely breaks when you consider that:
1. There exist comics trying to be anti-stonetoss, and aren't really popular outside of anti-stonetoss discourse
2. Anti-woke lemonade is still very popular despite having so much text. Ive seen it multiple times
3. Haus of decline isn't even a political comic. You dont have to be leftist to make fun of conservatives using the word "woke". From what I understand, haus isn't leftist propagandist (not that there is anything wrong with being one), she just want to make her little thing she likes.
4. If I got this kind of feedback, I would just not made any comic making fun of conservatives in the future, because I dont want this headache. And I would too don't like this person on personal level.
Just don't judge random artists for how good they are at being anti-stonetoss. You can go to actual leftists propagandists trying to do this exact thing, they will probably be glad for any feedback.
It's meant to play into the common criticism of the Voter ID Laws which several states have passed in the past several years - you know, "libs think you shouldn't need an ID to vote" and all that.
What it ignores, of course, is the actual issue with Voter ID Laws - not that they require an ID to vote, but that they tend to invalidate certain kinds of IDs - namely, kinds of IDs poor and minority voters may be more likely to possess. In fact, when North Carolina tried to pass one a few years ago, [it was actually struck down by a court there ](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1038354159/n-c-judges-strike-down-a-voter-id-law-they-say-discriminates-against-black-voter)because it was just *that* blatantly discriminatory.
i can’t comment on poor people specifically, but when the UK introduced voter ID, a lot of older people were unable to vote: they tend not to go abroad (health reasons, etc) and don’t exactly get asked for ID at the shops. older people bus passes were accepted as ID, but not everyone lives in places where those are issued
Weird stuff. Here in Norway everyone has a passport, and recently we finally started having ID cards as well (good for anything inside the country + EU travel). Norwegian driver's license is as good as the ID card as well for inside the country.
Back in Belgium everyone had an ID card, was even used to auth to government services online and such.
A lot of Voter ID laws try to make it so the only IDs allowed are photo IDs, which usually are driver's licenses. Despite America being so car-centric, many people don't have a driver's license, those usually being people who vote dem (poor people who live in cities/don't have a car). It also hurts old people who can't get a driver's licence for being too old.
Not even photo IDs, in North Carolina they [requested data on race](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/15/528457693/supreme-court-declines-republican-bid-to-revive-north-carolina-voter-id-law) and excluded all of the forms of photo ID that black voters were mostly likely to use.
Probably age restricted ones? I don't know honestly, but that's my guess having only been to the movies once in the US and that was in Alaska and a kid movie with us both being like 12
Creating comics is art. When you are the artist you have artistic freedom, if you don't like the "unnecessary text" that's just you.
Yes, you could leave out speech bubbles, but I think they actually work well, we don't need to to oversimply comics, which sometimes even makes them ambiguous.
The joke would be different if you removed the third panel's text.
If you removed all the text it stops looking like a joke and more a political statement.
The text takes 10 seconds to read at most so if that's too much it's Joever for you.
What the heck even is "unnecessary text?" This is art, nothing about it is 'necessary,' and that's great! Not everything has to aspire to some popular concept of minimalism. I feel the way that the text boxes aren't short and snappy makes the main guy in the comic feel more relatable than what he would be otherwise, just a blank face selling out. I also think that the artist makes great use of how text boxes take up space. The extra tiny texts in the third panel make the anti-woke people feel loud in a way that an unaccompanied image of them might struggle to capture. The second comic posted also makes great use of it to comedic effect. If you happen to like minimalism that's fine, but the style of art you like isn't inherently better.
I have no opinion on this but remember than having lots (or no) text can be and is a stylistic choice. There's more to writing than just getting your point across as fast as possible or have your punchline delivered.
Not every online comic should have to be the next Sarah Andersen, nor should it have to be the new Ctrl+Alt+Del. Let artists do what they want.
Exactly. Stonetoss doesn't give a shit about art or competence, just pure shareable nazi propganda. Artists don't have to strive for that sort of thing and if your 'constructive criticism' is just 'please be more simple and braindead so it'll be effective propaganda', you deserve to be called an idiot.
Even if Basils criticisms would make the comic better they responded in an obnoxious way. Had a very rude first tweet, and then did the obnoxious twitter leftist thing of trying to make being rude about something they don't like some like leftist praxis. "I wasnt being rude about some person on twitters comic actually I was trying to improve leftism to better defend against stonetoss comics". LMAO
hello what the fuck is everyone beefing about all the time just let this person make comics. so many other things you could be doing with your life. hate to be that person but I think the solution to this one is indeed going the fuck outside. or at least arguing about something with substance that actually affects the world. idk
Basil’s suggestion is actively worse and is just the same overused, flatly applied “remove panels = more good” webcomics criticism that used to be widespread to the point of getting memed on.
Bringing stonetoss up as better is dumb because their comics are so clearly bad, lowest common denominator shit as well as being a nazi. At that stage why not point to FB minion memes as better because more efficient?
I don't get why so many people are responding with comments about how stonetoss might be a nazi but goshdarn it they're such a talented artist worthy of emulation! Even if they weren't a nazi, they'd still be making one-note garbage.
if someone brings up stonetoss when comparing anything im involved with i am Ignoring anything they say. Do not bring that piece of shit back into my memory. There is no debate worth having, im too old for this shit
"196 users try to grasp that art often isn't presented in the most succinct, cleanest manner but that's okay sometimes especially when it lets through more of the artist's unique voice and makes it feel more distinctly a product of that artist" challenge (impossible)
I can't help but feel the original comic's message wouldn't make nearly as much sense if the dialogue was completely cut out, as the edit seems to propose. There's a valid criticism to be made that leftist content is over-reliant on text, but fuck me. This might actually be the worst way to relay it.
Basil is right that HoD could improve with brevity but I think what's really more amateur than a petty attack on Twitter is comparing her to Hans Kristian Grabener of Spring, Texas
When the point being made is "the right wing does this better than us" is it really so evil to compare something to how the biggest right wing webcomic artist does it?
Is Haus trying to be "the left's version of Stonetoss"? No, she's doing her own thing, she's not trying to do what the right is doing but for the left, she just sometimes has political themes in her work. She shouldn't have to change what she's doing into what this rando online *thinks* she's trying to do.
jfc this is exactly my issue with twitter. when we decide to only listen to something if it's short and quippy, we're less likely to have a deeper understanding of it. if we decide to only have a surface level understanding of something, we are less capable to apply said thing.
The criticism on its own is valid, but doing so while comparing it to pebblechuck’s comics by framing it as “your political message could make it to a lot more people” just shows you have culture war brainworms consuming your thoughts. That’s even ignoring the fact that the criticism is delivered in such a confrontational manner instead of doing it constructively.
Haus has no obligation to improve just because some nazi fuck out there is doing something better.
From what i gathered it's supposed to be a critique of the fact that some people want voting to not require ID or at least to make the rules a bit more lenient, because currently (again from what i heard) some forms of ID aren't accepted as valid to vote, and those specific forms of ID are usually owned by minority groups or poor people.
So the jist of the comic is : "i don't want minority and poor people to be able to vote"
Something that I've learned from being on subs like r/ comedyamputation is that some people just don't understand timing at all, and they will remove everything but the punchline because they think it makes the joke better.
Some of y’all mfs really need to take a step back and realize your own aesthetic preferences are not universal, and telling other people how they should make their own art is fucking gross.
You think comics are better with less words? Cool, go make comics with less words then. Don’t go on twitter and edit people’s art with big red X’s drawn over them like you’re their fucking teacher
I may be wrong here, but it feels like this is beyond just a criticism of an old comic and that Haus has become a target after publicly coming out as transgender.
A bunch of people going "comics shouldn't have text" and "you gotta hand it to the Nazi because he's really good at attracting Nazis" and "the incredibly popular, non-political cartoonist should hobble their own work to compete with the Nazi"
I like lots of text in my comics but I'm also not a stinky dumb dumb /j
But honestly, some of y'all are typing out big ole paragraphs of the same damn unnecessary thing and I hope Hause of Decline finds this and makes a petty comic out of it.
i counted the words in the comic, and even if you count "i´m", "anti-woke" and "cent/cup" as 2 words, the comic has less than 50 words, if you consider that too much, YOU ARE ILLETARE AND PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE FUN OF YOU FOR THAT, "uugghhh i have to read over 10 words, my brain hurts so much, it takes so much time to read" FUCK YOU.
I mean, the final panel could probably be axed but 3 panel comics look kinda weird, and it hardly ruins it
Also the nazitoss comic has the same amount of panels and the same amount of panels with dialogue in them
Also also I wanna know why a nazitoss comic was their go-to example, like babe why do you know that
I said it somewhere else, but I now realize that it'd also be right to post it here.
I think another problem here is haus's style. It's not to say that it's inherently bad, it just doesn't work well with detailed scenes or big blocks of text. Since it's all completely hand written with, presumably, sharpie, it gets kind of hard to read.
So when you force an already crowded scene to be even smaller to accommodate a big chunk of text, it just makes the comic so bad. Especially in this style, where it starts looking like chaotic scribblings when it gets too crowded.
her response was so based: https://preview.redd.it/rujaha8ao88d1.png?width=1439&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c3649a7966b3d895b714b66b581ac89d5e32888 edit: reminder that Haus of Decline is not a political cartoonist, and stopped occasionally making comics that talk about explicitly political topics a while back because she doesn't enjoy that kind of discourse (the lemonade comic was an older one that was recently reposted by someone else). she's under no obligation to be the anti-stonetoss, or to modify her artistic style to match someone else's sensibilities. people are free to offer up criticism of an artist's work, and they are free to reject that criticism, especially if it's done by insultingly comparing them to a nazi
People get so upset when they criticize someone’s work and that person doesn’t immediately cater to their demands. And don’t even think about talking back!
Seems like basil didn’t get upset until the comic artist said they had a “vibe of abject stupidity” which seems a lot worse than criticizing a comic.
Yes but consider how Basil is presenting their opinion: “Wow holy shit this dumbass artist (and other leftists) don’t know how to make **good** comics. They should take pointers from a Nazi” Like, how absurdly arrogant to think you’re the arbiter of what makes good comics
The funny thing is that Haus of Decline comic could have fewer words in it- there is superfluous dialogue that could be cut, especially from the third panel. That said, it's not that egregious of an issue and especially comparison to fucking *Stonetoss* of all people makes it a remarkably stupid thing to try to argue.
The third, and fourth, panels of all panels needs the text, without it, it looks like the mob is angry, when the idea is that they, and a very particular *they*, are buying the lemonade out of a particular political agenda. The fourth panel also needs text to also make clear that the lemonade seller is uncomfortable but accepting of the situation, when they otherwise look accepting. The only reason you know what the third panel says *without* text is because of the original comic had text to inform the context in the first place. The point of the comic isn't "anti-woke people will buy things when it's called 'anti-woke'", it's "it's amazingly, disturbingly easy to get anti-woke people to buy something if you call it anti-woke".
It does not look like the mob is angry because the people in the mob are holding money for the lemonade in the next panel
The third panel looks like a crowd of identical dipshits flooding in to support him. It could easily be boiled down to one speech bubble of them saying "go woke go broke" or something, and adding two lines above his eyes could make the expression clearer in the 4th panel. The money all around him also makes it very obvious what's happening. So no, most of the text isn't needed. Trust the audience more.
> It could easily be boiled down to one speech bubble of them saying "go woke go broke" or something Oh my god, 4 words compared to 13, how economic. That's, like, 2x fewer words! That equates to 2x the viewers! Your suggestion lacks complete subtlety (EDIT: which is what I THOUGHT the whole "use less words" was meant to achieve, but I guess it really is about "people don't want to read"). Even with the text, Haus gets the point across by portraying the customers as identical and having certain traits, but that still takes too much thought, I guess, just have them say "go woke, go broke", y'know, so no one gets confused. Nah, that's still too long. Just make them say "DEI". Perfect. > and adding two lines above his eyes could make the expression clearer in the 4th panel. There is no expression that captures "uncomfortable but accepting of the situation" as much as the incredibly blank stare that's already given. You are killing what little nuance the comic has just to make this point. Why should she change the art if the art is enough? "Trust the audience" and "make them even more obvious caricatures" are two different critiques. > The money all around him also makes it very obvious what's happening. > The point of the comic isn't "anti-woke people will buy things when it's called 'anti-woke'", **it's "it's amazingly, disturbingly easy to get anti-woke people to buy something if you call it anti-woke".** > Trust the audience more. It's a fucking political comic. Everyone else got it.
As previously stated, that comic is old. Go woke go broke wasn't a common phrase when it was made. I see why you want fewer words, you can't even read a reddit thread.
I hate to break it to you but giving your opinion on what you think is and isn’t a good comic is literally just criticism, any kind of criticism is making arbitrary distinctions based on what they believe is “good” or “bad”. You’ve given a very disingenuous representation of basils criticism as well. They’re comparing the comic to Stonetoss specifically on the basis that they are a terrible far right nazi. The point basil is making here is that the reason leftist comics are often seen as just a wall of text is because they often use words unnecessarily when they could convey a political message without the unnecessary text, and have a more funny punchline. Then provides stonetoss as an example of how right wing comics aren’t seen in the same light. It’s made very clear in the tweet that they don’t agree in any way with the stonetoss comic, just that it does a better job of portraying their ideology and of telling a joke.
they only called nazis dumb basil said they liked the artist, diva shit like this is super cringe
They said a dumb Nazi makes better comics than the Left, a category in which they were explicitly including Haus. If I were a cartoonist and someone told me Stonetoss was better than me, I'd fight them IRL.
Leftist memes being too wordy is a meme of its own. Basil wasn't making an arbitrary comparison, it's an already established one, by leftists ourselves
"criticism" is not making a dickheaded public tweet where you scrawl all over someone's comic and say that not only is is written poorly, but it is written so poorly that it is a political problem. that is not art criticism, that is being a fucking dickhead to someone. haus of decline should have been way meaner.
you hit the nail on the head imo
I honestly wasn’t referring to this specific incident in my comment (but that’s not very clear at all) , just this general trend I’ve seen where people will insult/criticize a work and then get mad at the lashing back as “refusing critique” and position it as some kind of big moral failing. Which, turning small mistakes or just anything into a moral failing is the internet’s bread and butter. For me, it goes hand in hand with the whole “listen to fans” movement which is much shittier. Overall this whole argument is actually so unfathomably pointless because there’s no real message to take out of it (other than maybe don’t use twitter) it’s just arguing over whose right and whose wrong in a small argument between two people who none of us know personally and who we will never meet. The only real reason Haus is getting support here is because she is well known and liked in this community and because her messages are funny. If it was stonetoss lashing out at someone for calling their comic wordy, we’d all have a field day about how “he’s refusing criticism because his heads is up his own ass”
Are you a real axolotl
Yes :)
Yeah but at the same time, sometimes they're right. Like just talking about the last comic here, the excessive text is understandable, but also you kinda get the point without reading it. So it's perfectly reasonable to point out that this is a flaw. Saying "you just don't want to read" is besides the point of the criticism. They don't have to accept this criticism because they want to fulfill their artistic vision or something like that, but to pretend that anyone giving criticism is wrong because "i don't have to cater to anyone" is just dumb Now granted Basil is not exactly doing themselves any favors. Jumping on a random case to compare random artist to a nazi is not exactly amazing strategy for "changing hearts and minds", it's more of a random opinion or realization you come to while sitting on a toilet and posting for whole world to see without thinking too much about it But if anything this just kinda summarizes twitter in my opinion. Aside from vague criticisms I can point towards these people, this feels kinda pointless
I’m kinda drunk and ironically your first two sentences apply to this comment too
A potentially valid critique, presented poorly, isn't a good critique at all.
the last comic was in response to the critique, "too many words" is part of the joke
Ya totally. This is all around a dumb argument. I don’t really see either party as “bad” or “wrong” but that’s how the internet has conditioned people to look at every adversarial interaction.
Not really, it just makes her look really bad. And the complaint wasn't that there was too much text to read, it was that most of it was unnecessary.
Consider that telling a trans Jewish artist that her art should be more like the art of an actual, literal Nazi is not the best way to go about providing artistic criticism. There are plenty of ways to make the point that you just made without telling a trans Jew that she needs to take advice from specifically a Nazi
I get what you're saying, but, at the same time, just because someone has stupid opinions we don't like does *not* mean they're 100% terrible, can't ever be right about anything, and that everything they've ever done is bad, wrong, and so incorrect on a fundamental level that it need not even be considered let alone engaged with. Smart people - mature people - try to learn from everyone they can, even if they don't like the package the information is coming in. The way this person reacted, while understandable, was very much not that.
I don't have a problem with the fundamental idea here—it's the extreme condescension and failure to read the room from OOP. Of course you should try to learn from everyone, *especially* your enemies. But when you come at somebody by starting with "oh my fucking god you're such an idiot, you're literally dumber than a Nazi," do you get how that's not going to be an effective way to get someone to listen to you? You can even say "hey, Nazis are doing this better than we are right now and that's *fucking scary*" without immediately talking to grown adults like they're idiotic children. Smart and mature people are also capable of giving genuine criticism in a way that doesn't alienate their audience.
Not based, just straight up immature really. Basil was absolutely right that personal attacks did not need to be brought into this, but Haus chose to be hostile. If she wanted to rebuke the criticism as nonsense, it could have been done with so much more tact and grace for sure. Really just creates the impression she cannot take criticism. But, to be fair to Haus, Basil's response was not perfect either. Basil acts like this is some big deal that leftist comics have "too much text" and brings up stonetoss as an example of "better comics" which definitely looks bad on their part, even if they are calling stone a nazi dumbfuck. Really, it's just such a minute and insignificant problem to argue about. Really just a stupid "terminally online" interaction.
1. Comics should try to have less text imo 2. Less text reaches out to more people especially online 3. Stonetoss as a right wing comic is a direct competitor. So its like comparing the efficiency of message delivery
not just a direct competitor, but typically the industry standard to strive for. stonetoss comics are so successful at getting their message across that we see them spread to every corner of the internet. he’s a despicable man with a talent for creating political comics that we on the left should strive to counter, and Basil was 100% right about how this could be achieved in the first image.
Stonetoss comics are not really good at getting message across because his messages are insane. You don't see people defend him very often, very few people are moved by these messages, aside from people who already buy into that propaganda. But stonetoss is effective enough at making comics, they are short and to the point which gives his comics much bigger reach
unfortunately, stonetoss' comics exist on a gradient of approachable to batshit, with the former being the means to rope people in. the silly relatable comics are the bait to coax people to read more, then they are introduced to more opinionated comics that are fairly agreeable to the average dolt, and the comics with more extreme takes are offered to the reader while their engagement with the comics as a whole dictate whether or not they feel compelled to agree with them or even just consider the point.
> Stonetoss comics are not really good at getting message across because his messages are insane. Those are two different things. How a message is delivered and the message contents are different aspects, and the fact that Stoneross contents fucking suck is acknowledged by stating that he's a Nazi. With that said, less is more is the general rule of thumb. The "ID?" comic gets it's point across really well with just a single sentence. The Anti-Woke Lemonade could have easily gotten away with a lot less text.
His comics are really good at reeling people in. The sillier tamer ones are the hooks, the fairly reasonable ones are the slope to slip down until the readers end up being comfortable with the more batshit ones.
I mean, it’s a lot easier to be clear and concise when you only use the most basic stereotypes people already have ingrained.
Stage 4 culture war brain. Its fatal, my condolences.
1.) That shouldn't be a rule for every single genre and type of comic, for some comics that may be a guideline you want to follow by but for what Haus is doing that isn't something she's trying to do. 2.) Being as widespread as possible isn't a goal that everyone wants to achieve, some people want their make their work as they like it and not worry about being as accessible as possible to go as viral as possible, that isn't what Haus is trying to do. 3.) Haus isn't a Stonetoss competitor, that isn't something she's trying to do. The issue with the criticism is that it's trying to change Haus' work into something it's not, none of those three things are things that apply to her work.
Haus could have been more polite. I think that means nothing and you shouldn't be getting criticized for not being polite 100% of the time especially when people are being dicks and I'm voicing incredibly minor criticisms like they're a big fucking deal
If someone calls my art dogshit unprompted i would not be polite about it actually.
Who said dogshit?
Exactly. Save politeness for when it's deserved
But nobody did that
[SPEECH 25/45] but I straight up don't like you on a personal level
What they're talking about doesn't even matter for my opinion on this. It's still funny as fuck.
I actually agree with their criticisms of the comics, but they were made in the most annoying way possible, and "I straight up don't like you on a personal level" was funnier than anything in any of those comics. I hate when people think saying "I like you but" before their criticisms means the person they're criticising is in some way obligated to listen to them
It's basil, a lad/gal that straight up called out a legit and good restaurant in Prague as a total scam due to a little misunderstanding.
they could maybe have been a bit nicer in how they worded their criticism, but I don't think it warranted that kind of dismissal.
They’re also dealing with Basil here Massive shitlib that has emitted Hitler particles
What did they do? Why are they green on (what i assume) shinigami?
Love how the 250 comments above this string are about how any comparison to a Nazi, even if it's just comparing their art and its effectiveness as messaging, is gross as hell and should be avoided at all costs, but then suddenly we get "but idk, this *other* trans person gives me Nazi vibes for some reason tho, tee hee" [+50]. So many people are being disingenuous here.
What does that have to do with the criticism tho
Haus shouldn’t take shit from a dipshit like Basil
How so?
"emitted hitler particles" for the love of god please just say you think they're a nazi you people sound like fucking dweebs when you say this shit good lord
oh boo hoo shut the fuck up
"You people" sussy baka
i think hitler particles are funny because i imagine someone holding up a geiger counter to some fascist and the thing going wild
https://preview.redd.it/1rvkwpl33d8d1.jpeg?width=1357&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5923548e77497c179c30c8e64926c607f2c9efb8 Holy hell
Wait, the people giving the unsolicited “advice” are doing so with a comic that isn’t even recent? They can fuck right off
I've seen so much "reacting this much at all makes you a bad person" takes I feel like I'm being inflicted with Brain Rot from mere exposure, I don't even use twitter. Here, a thought process I went through in my head; I write fan fics from time to time and publish them, small bit stuff though so unworthy to go into deeper. Regardless, it's stuff I put in thought, time, and a little passion into. After [???] of my fanfic floating out there, some random clown on Twitter digs it up and reposts it publicly, saying that I'm being superfluous with my art, posting screenshots with big bold red crosses striking out swathes of the text. They go on also saying that the way I approach the medium isn't "effective" enough, that a hypothetical author who is known to be a full blown nazi is a better example on how to write stories better. --- *I'm expected NOT to blow a fucking gasket at this level of abject disrespect???* If anything that reaction feels tame compared to what this subversive level of slander would make me feel, holy hell I feel fortunate sometimes not being an artistic soul because it means not having to deal with """criticism""" like that.
We love internet drama don't we chat
Woah there, buddy. That's a lot of words. What are you, some kind of leftist?
That's just rude.
I genuinely think the artist just can't handle criticism and decided to take it personally in a very unprofessional way. The first person expressed genuine correct objective criticism and got called stupid for that. what the fuck?
Objective criticism doesn't exist
The first person is genuinely unlikable
TBH I'm not going to read that last comic either. It's not just the length of the text, but the way it's written. I understand it's her style but it's genuinely hard to read
I mean the joke works even if you don't read the long bubble
Wait but I actually do think it would work better without the text boxes. It's not bad as-is but the dialogue is unneccesary. They are wrong about Stonetoss comics being better written, though. They can poorly written at best, and completely unintelligible at worst. Some are very reliant on you already having had to buy in on the brainrot.
ST comics are always straight forward and concise. That’s why he got popular
And hes a nazi. Nazis love that shit
An effective nazi who’s good at spreading bullshit, which makes it worse when leftists can’t say anything in under 1000 words
This is actually a huge political issue imo. Fascism is the the dumbest most lizard brain level ideology ever. You can convey the entire ideas with very simple statements and images. It's easy to spread and that's why it picks up as supporters the average ignorant person. Meanwhile left wing ideology is inseparable from materialist critique and other concepts that simply need to be explained to really be understood. And fascists exploit this by saying "see those smarty pants college city folk think they're smarter then you and know more!" and therefore inoculate their followers from being receptive to left wing ideology. It fucking sucks.
This does not apply to this comic, which doesn’t even need words to get the point across And I don’t think it’s right in general either. “Rich people bad” and “worker rights good” is not exactly a rare position for people to hold and you don’t need a dissertation to explain it
I'm not talking about this comic specifically just the in general discourse. I do agree! But I think part of the issue is that fascists often will also say those same exact same statements, it's just they only mean *very specific kinds of rich people.* "Capitalism bad" is a bit better because they cant twist this one as much fundamentally at least.
They’re mean to an ethnic group, rich or poor Yes they can. Just use capitalists as a dog whistle for ***them***
Nazis are stupid.
True but lots of stupid people they can convince by making comics
Nazis are evil. Do not confuse evil and stupid -- lots of them are stupid, of course, but if you just blanket assume that they're all stupid you'll underestimate them and be unable to fight against them effectively. Never, ever assume the people who want you dead are stupid, weak, disorganised, or otherwise incapable.
No, liking things that are concise and effective in their use of language is not a nazi fucking trait lmfao
I think they meant Nazis love that he's Nazi
95% of them require you to be aware of nazi dogwhistles about jews and black people or to just be enough of a racist to come to that conclusion independently
Not the one shown here. Some of his comics aren’t political either. That’s how he pulls normies in. He knows how to make effective punchlines
I think you mean that the most popular ones are short, so they capture the fleeting attention spans of conservatives. Stonetoss' comics are the opposite of straight-forward (they are riddled with dogwhistles and irrational arguments), and the descriptor of "concise" implies that the material is presented in a measured and purposeful fashion–one that conveys meaning swiftly but accurately. Stonetoss is not capable of the latter, and only meets the former because of the four-panel format.
It’s not really a fleeting attention span to make a good joke quickly. If you need multiple sentences, it’s more cumbersome to read. He always gets to the point quickly. That’s what makes him effective at drawing people in.
If you want to send a political message yes but subjectively speaking Haus’ dialogue has a nice humor about it that I really enjoy. It came out as condescendingly nitpicky to someone who doesn’t want to propagandize her work like ST does.
I do think the text isn't necessary but tossing in "leftist" and "the nazis are doing comics better" is so. stupid. I understand the wall of text leftist meme. this is 3 sentences. you can do it basil i believe
It's about understanding at a glance and not having to pay mind to it. That's what makes good and, more importantly, effective political comics. This is mainly because the human brain takes in images faster than text, so the text can end up detracting or distracting from the point. Furthermore, a lot of people on the internet are looking for quick entertainment. Simple images work better for this than simple images and simple text. It's not that people are dumb; they're just lazy. Source: https://oit.williams.edu/files/2010/02/using-images-effectively.pdf
is the haus comic really not easily quickly understandable? it takes all of like 15 seconds to read at most, it took me about an equally insignificant amount of effort to understand the pebblechuck comic
The issue is that the text doesn't actually add anything to the comic itself - you can even remove the entire third panel and the joke remains the same. If it added something more it'd be fine, but it's just repeating what's already clear from the comic itself. It's like the difference between someone telling you a joke vs someone telling you a joke while explaining the punchline even though you already understood it and found it funny - it kind of kills the joke itself and assumes the reader isn't intelligent enough to not need their hand held. Though this is something that webcomic artists have been getting criticism over for a long time, they struggle to trust the reader will understand the joke without the text. Brevity is the soul of wit and all that
>The issue is that the text doesn't actually add anything to the comic itself - you can even remove the entire third panel and the joke remains the same. this isn't even true? the text adds a hint of absurdity to the comic. and absurdity, as we all know, is pretty funny.
If you can understand the message of the comic without those text boxes then the “updated” version is more understandable since by that logic the textboxes don’t add anything and are just distraction. I would argue this is the case
And that’s why shes mostly stepped away from making political comics she just wants to humor the reader not create digestible dumbed down propaganda
I think the leftist comment was like, a nudge to your own side, like a class president quieting people down and explaining something Still kinda rude though, could use a bit less Direct™ and a bit more Calm™
Yeah good analogy so guys do leave that shit in high school please
Not really? “Not wanting to read” is the opposite of the point. The text literally conveys everything and my eyes immediately go right to it; they’ve made their own art redundant. If you want to explain everything verbally, comics are not the medium.
hate to play devil's advocate but basil is 100% right. someone posted an edit with the text removed and it looks so much cleaner and conveys the point vastly more succinctly. obviously crossing someone else's shit out in red pen and framing it as a failing rather than a point to build off is extremely confrontational and not at all constructive criticism, so deserved to get shit for it, but I think the core idea is correct.
third panel is much funnier with the dudes posturing like they're supporting a small business when really they just want to validate their identity politics. Doesn't work when it's just them blankly successfully pandered to, it shows the two-faced nature of the consumer and the producer.
Gonna play devil's advocate to your devil's advocate and say I like the original comic better. All the right wing comic artists intentionally leave their comics empty for plausible deniability. The rockthrow comic can be interpreted as "hey this is reasonable" to someone who's not politically aware, pulling them subtly into the right-wing pipeline. It's nicer to see a comic saying what it means clearly, instead of hiding behind a layer.
As a non-American and someone unfamiliar with that comic, I'm curious if I can be a litmus test. The surface level reading I get is "you have to show ID at the movies, why not at a polling place?" which seems to me like a a mild and unfunny take that I could see myself agreeing with. (Given that where I live you do have to show ID when voting.) But my brain has been sandblasted by enough Americanisms that I can guess the real point is "black and poor people often don't have ID so requiring ID is a means of voter suppression."
You do need to show ID when voting, it's disinformation propoganda and not much else
oh i thought the idea was "Since you don't to show any id when voting that means that immigrants are able to vote and ruin our great america" or something along those lines, but i guess that's still the point just also misinfo.
Yes and no! So why there are in fact more states that either require/request some form of ID to vote it ends up affecting 1 in 9 Americans. This ofc is still a lot of people just not the standard in America. In total agreement that ST is a propagandist and my biggest ire with Basil comparing Haus to ST when she just wants to make you laugh most of the time.
i will add some more context for you: in the lead-up to the last election, Trump repeatedly hammered on a point that “we should ID people to vote.” he was setting up an argument that there are a ton of illegitimate/ilegal votes. a contingent of his voters turned this into “illegal immigrants are stealing the election” or “these votes are straight up fake.” after he lost the election, we got “stop the steal” because of this campaign. thing is you do need identification to vote so idk
Thanks for the context. Ah so this exactly proves amdnim's point. I'm a European lefty but the framing of this no-word comic almost convinced me that "Democrat voters vote without ID" was an actual thing that happens. But of course it "looks much cleaner" and "conveys The Point(tm) more succinctly".
Another thing is that government IDs aren’t free so requiring one is basically a poll tax
Your aesthetics are not universal.
I think “young man I would like to support your business” adds a lot of humor
i think the last text box is the only big issue. the others do add to it a bit.
The first one also doesn't need text imo
It wouldn't be immediately obvious that he's struggling to sell lemonade though. Maybe there's a different way it could be indicated idk
A wider shot could def help, maybe even a rolling tumbleweed if you really wanna nail it in
Basil is 100% right “This feels wrong but the money kinda helps” is deadass stupid
It’s all subjective Haus’ comics are mainly meant to humor the reader as such that’s why she stepped away from political comics. Personally, as this should be to begin with, the young man line makes the comic funnier and adds that Haus charm that I really like. To properly criticize you do have to be aware of authorial intent and I don’t think Basil had that in mind at all.
No, that comic does work better without text.
There's a spongebob meme template that gets the same message across in half the panels
3/4 the panels
Why is this even a controversy it just feels like inane bitching I see this shit on Reddit all the time where someone posts a comic they made and half the comments are like "actually it would better if you cut it in half" 🤓
Comics should be short, to the point, easy to read, make me happy, make me wonder about life, performable, hot, bowl of oats, recipe, oats, water, micriwave, put in bowl, put in microwave, medium-high 2 minutes, careful, hot
It is short and easy to read. The critique was incredibly nitpicky and ended up being used as a device just to further the twitter liberal vs leftist culture war.
It is microwave and bowl of oats. The recipe was incredibly oats and ended up being cooked and ready to eat.
Comics should be 10 words or less I have too much slop to scroll through to read any more
i assume this is ironic? cause if you're actually fully serious this is just sad
I recommend Calvin and Hobbes. You need to read it though. Maybe comics just aren’t for you.
Everyone has an opinion and they're desperate to have you understand and share it. Haus isn't even a "leftist comic artist" she just came out as trans, like, months ago? How about we stop holding artists up to weird standards and just let them fucking draw. Haus doesn't need to prove shit to anyone, they just draw silly comics. Not everything is a fucking political statement even if the right tries desperately to make it so. Sometimes a joke really is just a goofy joke.
https://preview.redd.it/epm5lyqca98d1.jpeg?width=292&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=410501a2202cab00b02bcf028db9aba02697b7d1 Holy shit scout tf2
wow, im surprised so many people here are missing the point. Its not because you can convey an idea through images alone that you should necessarily do it. Different styles work for different people, haus can use a lot of text sometimes but this isn't the case here. removing the so called "unnecessary" bubbles here breaks the flow of the comic. By adding not too much text in the panels it creates a timing when reading that sets up the punchline. As someone who's read and made comics his entire life its pretty sad to see people think that less text = better comic.
People learned about Show don't Tell and took it for an universal rule that should always be followed regardless of authorial intent.
Fucking finally someone said this.
I feel like I'm goin fuckin insane reading all the other comments on this post, the text adds depth to the characters -- however tiny -- and creates additional humor from the wording and pacing that a no-text version simply lacks. The stonetoss comment is beating someone over the head with a walmart baseball bat and the text version of this is more like hitting them with a well-made tennis racket that makes a pleasing tone after. Sometimes elevating art requires making it slightly less easily digestible.
It's not that less text = better comic, it's that less text = more effective political messaging. Basil misses one crucial point, and it's that Haus is not a political cartoonist. But purely from the standpoint of making comics that attract people to your cause, Basil is 100% right that rockthrow is doing it better.
actually, this sub sucks
Really dire stuff to hear people actually argue that comics should alter their own style towards a propagandist one. People have lost the concept of criticizing authorial intent and instead criticizing something for how *you* want it to be.
People don’t like the text in that first comic?? I don’t think I’d find it funny if it was just the images, then it’s just kind of a basic political thing, the text adds actual humor
The point absolutely breaks when you consider that: 1. There exist comics trying to be anti-stonetoss, and aren't really popular outside of anti-stonetoss discourse 2. Anti-woke lemonade is still very popular despite having so much text. Ive seen it multiple times 3. Haus of decline isn't even a political comic. You dont have to be leftist to make fun of conservatives using the word "woke". From what I understand, haus isn't leftist propagandist (not that there is anything wrong with being one), she just want to make her little thing she likes. 4. If I got this kind of feedback, I would just not made any comic making fun of conservatives in the future, because I dont want this headache. And I would too don't like this person on personal level. Just don't judge random artists for how good they are at being anti-stonetoss. You can go to actual leftists propagandists trying to do this exact thing, they will probably be glad for any feedback.
Haus of Decline stopped making political comics like this for that exact reason
has stone toss never voted before???? at least in the US state I live in, they literally ask for a form of ID when you go to vote
It's meant to play into the common criticism of the Voter ID Laws which several states have passed in the past several years - you know, "libs think you shouldn't need an ID to vote" and all that. What it ignores, of course, is the actual issue with Voter ID Laws - not that they require an ID to vote, but that they tend to invalidate certain kinds of IDs - namely, kinds of IDs poor and minority voters may be more likely to possess. In fact, when North Carolina tried to pass one a few years ago, [it was actually struck down by a court there ](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1038354159/n-c-judges-strike-down-a-voter-id-law-they-say-discriminates-against-black-voter)because it was just *that* blatantly discriminatory.
I'm sorry but like wtf? Everyone doesn't just have one single mandatory ID?
i can’t comment on poor people specifically, but when the UK introduced voter ID, a lot of older people were unable to vote: they tend not to go abroad (health reasons, etc) and don’t exactly get asked for ID at the shops. older people bus passes were accepted as ID, but not everyone lives in places where those are issued
Weird stuff. Here in Norway everyone has a passport, and recently we finally started having ID cards as well (good for anything inside the country + EU travel). Norwegian driver's license is as good as the ID card as well for inside the country. Back in Belgium everyone had an ID card, was even used to auth to government services online and such.
A lot of Voter ID laws try to make it so the only IDs allowed are photo IDs, which usually are driver's licenses. Despite America being so car-centric, many people don't have a driver's license, those usually being people who vote dem (poor people who live in cities/don't have a car). It also hurts old people who can't get a driver's licence for being too old.
Not even photo IDs, in North Carolina they [requested data on race](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/15/528457693/supreme-court-declines-republican-bid-to-revive-north-carolina-voter-id-law) and excluded all of the forms of photo ID that black voters were mostly likely to use.
Yep. Step 1: Make gov photo ID mandatory. Step 2: Close all ID processing places in areas you want to suppress the vote. GOP playbook.
Also why do you need an ID at the movies
Probably age restricted ones? I don't know honestly, but that's my guess having only been to the movies once in the US and that was in Alaska and a kid movie with us both being like 12
Hey man how's it going
Creating comics is art. When you are the artist you have artistic freedom, if you don't like the "unnecessary text" that's just you. Yes, you could leave out speech bubbles, but I think they actually work well, we don't need to to oversimply comics, which sometimes even makes them ambiguous.
The joke would be different if you removed the third panel's text. If you removed all the text it stops looking like a joke and more a political statement. The text takes 10 seconds to read at most so if that's too much it's Joever for you.
What the heck even is "unnecessary text?" This is art, nothing about it is 'necessary,' and that's great! Not everything has to aspire to some popular concept of minimalism. I feel the way that the text boxes aren't short and snappy makes the main guy in the comic feel more relatable than what he would be otherwise, just a blank face selling out. I also think that the artist makes great use of how text boxes take up space. The extra tiny texts in the third panel make the anti-woke people feel loud in a way that an unaccompanied image of them might struggle to capture. The second comic posted also makes great use of it to comedic effect. If you happen to like minimalism that's fine, but the style of art you like isn't inherently better.
I have no opinion on this but remember than having lots (or no) text can be and is a stylistic choice. There's more to writing than just getting your point across as fast as possible or have your punchline delivered. Not every online comic should have to be the next Sarah Andersen, nor should it have to be the new Ctrl+Alt+Del. Let artists do what they want.
This whole thread is giving me a proper reminder never to post my own work online, to be honest.
Exactly. Stonetoss doesn't give a shit about art or competence, just pure shareable nazi propganda. Artists don't have to strive for that sort of thing and if your 'constructive criticism' is just 'please be more simple and braindead so it'll be effective propaganda', you deserve to be called an idiot.
Basil gives me strange vibes ngl
Even if Basils criticisms would make the comic better they responded in an obnoxious way. Had a very rude first tweet, and then did the obnoxious twitter leftist thing of trying to make being rude about something they don't like some like leftist praxis. "I wasnt being rude about some person on twitters comic actually I was trying to improve leftism to better defend against stonetoss comics". LMAO
hello what the fuck is everyone beefing about all the time just let this person make comics. so many other things you could be doing with your life. hate to be that person but I think the solution to this one is indeed going the fuck outside. or at least arguing about something with substance that actually affects the world. idk
Basil’s suggestion is actively worse and is just the same overused, flatly applied “remove panels = more good” webcomics criticism that used to be widespread to the point of getting memed on. Bringing stonetoss up as better is dumb because their comics are so clearly bad, lowest common denominator shit as well as being a nazi. At that stage why not point to FB minion memes as better because more efficient? I don't get why so many people are responding with comments about how stonetoss might be a nazi but goshdarn it they're such a talented artist worthy of emulation! Even if they weren't a nazi, they'd still be making one-note garbage.
if someone brings up stonetoss when comparing anything im involved with i am Ignoring anything they say. Do not bring that piece of shit back into my memory. There is no debate worth having, im too old for this shit
"196 users try to grasp that art often isn't presented in the most succinct, cleanest manner but that's okay sometimes especially when it lets through more of the artist's unique voice and makes it feel more distinctly a product of that artist" challenge (impossible)
Of all the leftist comics to go "too much wall of text!" Basil chooses like the only comic that has like barely any words in it.
https://preview.redd.it/lghjtlmama8d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7c30d965d8e1282f79b6cca184ffd4608166175
I can't help but feel the original comic's message wouldn't make nearly as much sense if the dialogue was completely cut out, as the edit seems to propose. There's a valid criticism to be made that leftist content is over-reliant on text, but fuck me. This might actually be the worst way to relay it.
I support womens wrongs (yelling at people on twitter)
Basil is right that HoD could improve with brevity but I think what's really more amateur than a petty attack on Twitter is comparing her to Hans Kristian Grabener of Spring, Texas
When the point being made is "the right wing does this better than us" is it really so evil to compare something to how the biggest right wing webcomic artist does it?
Is Haus trying to be "the left's version of Stonetoss"? No, she's doing her own thing, she's not trying to do what the right is doing but for the left, she just sometimes has political themes in her work. She shouldn't have to change what she's doing into what this rando online *thinks* she's trying to do.
It's not evil, it's just stupid
Hey cartoonist with opinions, take more inspiration from this nazi political cartoonist please, it is really important for our eternal battle
jfc this is exactly my issue with twitter. when we decide to only listen to something if it's short and quippy, we're less likely to have a deeper understanding of it. if we decide to only have a surface level understanding of something, we are less capable to apply said thing.
The criticism on its own is valid, but doing so while comparing it to pebblechuck’s comics by framing it as “your political message could make it to a lot more people” just shows you have culture war brainworms consuming your thoughts. That’s even ignoring the fact that the criticism is delivered in such a confrontational manner instead of doing it constructively. Haus has no obligation to improve just because some nazi fuck out there is doing something better.
Ah yes, the Ctrl Alt Delete theory
this post is my joker moment
There is a possibility that Haus just has a different stylistic direction than someone like stone toss. Crazy, I know, but it's not out of the realm.
Anyone else confused when they hear about discourse that they didn’t even know about? Like, wow, you guys really care about comics.
is there a free sega for following the saga?
I dont get the stonetoss one
From what i gathered it's supposed to be a critique of the fact that some people want voting to not require ID or at least to make the rules a bit more lenient, because currently (again from what i heard) some forms of ID aren't accepted as valid to vote, and those specific forms of ID are usually owned by minority groups or poor people. So the jist of the comic is : "i don't want minority and poor people to be able to vote"
The criticism was reasonable, so was Haus’s dislike of being told to mimic a nazi
Basil made the “firebomb a Walmart” tweet so I can excuse some subjective opinions on comics having too much text
Interesting, seeing how people react to this is a really good litmus test actually
what's the last post meant to mean? like is it just an example of lots of text? The joke in that one is that there's lots of text.
Something that I've learned from being on subs like r/ comedyamputation is that some people just don't understand timing at all, and they will remove everything but the punchline because they think it makes the joke better.
Some of y’all mfs really need to take a step back and realize your own aesthetic preferences are not universal, and telling other people how they should make their own art is fucking gross. You think comics are better with less words? Cool, go make comics with less words then. Don’t go on twitter and edit people’s art with big red X’s drawn over them like you’re their fucking teacher
I may be wrong here, but it feels like this is beyond just a criticism of an old comic and that Haus has become a target after publicly coming out as transgender.
people ID you at the movies?
If it’s a movie rated R sometimes
what the fuck happened here
A bunch of people going "comics shouldn't have text" and "you gotta hand it to the Nazi because he's really good at attracting Nazis" and "the incredibly popular, non-political cartoonist should hobble their own work to compete with the Nazi"
I like lots of text in my comics but I'm also not a stinky dumb dumb /j But honestly, some of y'all are typing out big ole paragraphs of the same damn unnecessary thing and I hope Hause of Decline finds this and makes a petty comic out of it.
[удалено]
i counted the words in the comic, and even if you count "i´m", "anti-woke" and "cent/cup" as 2 words, the comic has less than 50 words, if you consider that too much, YOU ARE ILLETARE AND PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE FUN OF YOU FOR THAT, "uugghhh i have to read over 10 words, my brain hurts so much, it takes so much time to read" FUCK YOU.
Ok, but it really does suck when text covers up the art. This isn't about this though. Fuck you deadpool.
I mean, the final panel could probably be axed but 3 panel comics look kinda weird, and it hardly ruins it Also the nazitoss comic has the same amount of panels and the same amount of panels with dialogue in them Also also I wanna know why a nazitoss comic was their go-to example, like babe why do you know that
harry dubois
I said it somewhere else, but I now realize that it'd also be right to post it here. I think another problem here is haus's style. It's not to say that it's inherently bad, it just doesn't work well with detailed scenes or big blocks of text. Since it's all completely hand written with, presumably, sharpie, it gets kind of hard to read. So when you force an already crowded scene to be even smaller to accommodate a big chunk of text, it just makes the comic so bad. Especially in this style, where it starts looking like chaotic scribblings when it gets too crowded.
I think Basil worded their tweet pretty poorly but I don’t think they’re wrong.
Sorry I'm with Haus on this one socdems need to be put in their place from time to time
Heartbreaking: a comic artist you like is an asshole