Is This Bitcoin Weekly Comic Crap?

[Synaptic]

I didn't call you a douche. I called you a huge douche.

Huge difference.

...to illustrate quite well for us.

Thank you, Sir.

[1713244993]

1713244993

[1713244993]

1713244993

[1713244993]

1713244993

[kiba]

I didn't call you a douche. I called you a huge douche.

Huge difference.

It's best to ignore him. Feeding the troll will only make him talk more.

[Synaptic]

I didn't call you a douche. I called you a huge douche.

Huge difference.

It's best to ignore him. Feeding the troll will only make him talk more.

...to illustrate quite well for us.

Thank you, Sir.

[Synaptic]

Hey now, I'm just trying to drive more traffic to your site...

...remember buddy?

[kiba]

I laughed at Bitsquirrel. The rest, not so much. Of course, I understood Bitsquirrel, and someone who hasn't been involved with Bitcoin for several months might not get it.

Thanks for your feedback.

I guess the best advice I can give is to make the comic accessible to people who aren't as familiar with Bitcoin.

Of course, it's easier said than done.

[kiba]

I made the money windmill, and I was tickled that you wanted to use it. That said, I don't think it worked well in a comic, and here's why:

Symbols and memes are everywhere on the internet, and they mainly work well because they pack a whole lot of information into an immediately recognizable and portable package. The symbol is already the punchline.

You can make comics which use these symbols, but they're bound to end up seeming weak, because they don't have any particular reason to exist. If we recognize the symbols and smile at them, we don't need a comic to remind us of it-- you can just show us the symbol and we'll smile. If you can show us a very original story, or character, or ironic situation, and incorporate a symbol into that, we'll fall out of our chairs. But if you rely on the symbols to carry the weight, it'll fall flat, even on those who understand what the symbol means.

When you're writing jokes for an in-group, you're bound to come up with a lot of crappy jokes for this reason.

Very good points.

My advice (FWIW) would be to not worry so much about making jokes about bitcoins, and focus on making jokes that people who like bitcoins would find funny. If you can make a few nods to the bitcoin community in the process, all the better-- but bitcoin itself isn't that funny.

Like you said, making jokes for in-group means lot of crappy jokes. I want to make good jokes.

Although, Bitcoin is indeed not funny, but you can probably find lot of material within the community that surrounds bitcoin.

[error]

Maybe try commenting on current economic and political events? There are jokes aplenty to make about everything Helicopter Ben and his cronies do.

[kiba]

Maybe try commenting on current economic and political events? There are jokes aplenty to make about everything Helicopter Ben and his cronies do.

Of course, you can make predictable jokes that only anarchists would laugh at. That's the catch-22.

[kiba]

I didn't call you a douche. I called you a huge douche.

Huge difference.

It's best to ignore him. Feeding the troll will only make him talk more.

I changed my mind on my opinion about this person, Synaptic..after asking people on #lesswrong

he's not being rude because he wants these comics to (continue to) fail, that is, he's not malevolent, which is what a "troll" would do. he's just being rude because he's repulsed by the quality of these comics, and considers you to be a worthless person, not worthy of respect, because you are associated with these comics.

an understandable reaction, it's easy to interpret poor quality works as being indicative of a poor quality person.

Now that being said, CaptainZinn gave me some valuable feedback:

He said 1 and 2 comics are simply not funny. Bitsquirrel is good. 3, 5, 6 praised bitcoin too much.

[joeydangerous]

Hey guys, just found the topic. To be honest, I couldn't figure out anything during last week for the newest comic, and that was all I could come up with in the end. I also have a very limited time to work on the comic each week due to long hours working on my main projects, and I'm mostly doing it out of love for bitcoin. I try my best with what I have, and welcome any constructive criticism, so thanks for the comments.

If anybody has any cool ideas for new comics you want to give us, I'm open to hearing them, too.

[tfeagle]

 

Might be late for me to offer advice.  If so, then please ignore. 

(If not, then please donate bitcoin!)

I recommend that you examine SP:
http://somethingpositive.net/

The drawing style is similar to yours, although not an exact match.

SP threads/storylines are not the best, and the subject matter is not the best. 

Nevertheless, SP has a large and loyal following.  The cynical humor and presentation techniques are pretty good. 

If you look into the archives, you will see that there are multiple storylines.  Each storyline is presented in small bursts, with several or many sequential daily pages used to present a burst, over a week or two of time. 

Also, the data base allows reading individual pages in chronological order, or in subject order.  And the pages in a given burst can be identified from the title/name (in the archive listing) without need to read the entire burst.  There are quite a few singleton pages...pages that tell a more or less complete story in one day...but I find these to be less interesting. 

Most of the storylines are related to each other, and there are many cross-references.  This is a bit confusing to a new reader.  But I find that it makes the complete body of work more interesting. 

If you read from the beginning (which will take a long, long time) you will note that all of the characters have an interesting...or at least plausible...back story that explains how each character is related to another. 

I could say more, but will wait a bit, to see comments from other forum members.

Oh yes...this is my favorite comic. 
http://www.bitcoinweekly.com/comics/bitcoin-future

- TFeagle

Note: Please send all extra/surplus BTC/XCB to = 1FKHCUrKR8ahAFHP44pvbURsRxtfrgoNgG

[Synaptic]

I didn't call you a douche. I called you a huge douche.

Huge difference.

It's best to ignore him. Feeding the troll will only make him talk more.

I changed my mind on my opinion about this person, Synaptic..after asking people on #lesswrong

he's not being rude because he wants these comics to (continue to) fail, that is, he's not malevolent, which is what a "troll" would do. he's just being rude because he's repulsed by the quality of these comics, and considers you to be a worthless person, not worthy of respect, because you are associated with these comics.

an understandable reaction, it's easy to interpret poor quality works as being indicative of a poor quality person.

Now that being said, CaptainZinn gave me some valuable feedback:

He said 1 and 2 comics are simply not funny. Bitsquirrel is good. 3, 5, 6 praised bitcoin too much.

Hey now, let's be clear here: I never meant to suggest you were a poor quality person based on my opinion that your comics are utterly moronic and bereft of any humorous value.

On the contrary, you could be a youth or someone suffering a clinical mental deficiency, or someone who is simply without a developed sense of humor or apropos which causes you to produce such tripe, yet still be a wonderful human being otherwise.

You could be a great parent to happy youngsters, or proficient at a music instrument.  You could have super-model looks, or excel at academic pursuits.

Then again, you could also be a pederast, animal torturer, or general sociopath/psychotic.

I really have no idea, nor to I have any iota of a desire to find out.

All I know is that your "comics" are utter crap and you'd probably be better off doing something that draws on one of your natural talents, and if I'm to compliment you at all here, it's that you MUST have SOME type of talent that's appreciably more developed than comedy...

EDIT: And of course, these are merely the opinions of someone far, far away, and completely inconsequential to your life's progression, so don't let it derail your roll.

 

[JohnDoeZ]

Excellent, can your thread be deleted now?

If you ever eat breakfast with this guy, don't turn your back on him for a second.

He would probably take a crap in your cornflakes.

I am totally aggree with RchGrav.

I like your comic OP 
I know its hard to make a good one, but still you are doing great.

While I won't be near as mean about it as Synaptic and others have been - you really do need to come up with storylines that don't just amount to giant pats on the back, or circle-jerking about the future uses of it. My only problem with that (and where the "constructive" part of my criticism ends) is that I honestly have no idea what you could make a comic about Bitcoin that doesn't involve either patting one's own back or circle-jerking.

Maybe something more technical, explaining how the things work? I think it was your site that had the "eat this carrot" comic which was getting towards what I think would be useful. I guess it's tough to do - explain an aspect of Bitcoin in 6~12 frames, but honestly squirrels dropping bombs on windmills made of fiat currency isn't really helping anything (unless you're speculating on the number of times in a day people will say "what the fuck?") regardless of how awesome the frame with Gavin riding the Alpaca is for those of us in on the joke.

And don't listen to cynically bullshit crap.

I enjoy your comic OP, Thanks.
Keep up the good works, keep 'em coming 

[wumpus]

I really like the comics, usually 

And every comic has a bad one once in a while, I don't see the problem really...

[kiba]

I really like the comics, usually 

And every comic has a bad one once in a while, I don't see the problem really...

At the very least mention your favorite and comic you don't find funny/least laughed.

Nice to know that I have fans though.

[kiba]

All I know is that your "comics" are utter crap and you'd probably be better off doing something that draws on one of your natural talents, and if I'm to compliment you at all here, it's that you MUST have SOME type of talent that's appreciably more developed than comedy...

Comedy is simply hard. Those who are good at it probably spent a lot of time practicing and iterating.

[Xephan]

I like the mascot comic, it was cute and I think I would had laughed even if I didn't know what bitcoin was about. I would had laughed harder if "Bitbird" looked like BigBird from Sesame street

Rate would had been funny I guess... if I knew about bitcoin during the price spike last month

Fiat Kingdom (first thing that came to mind on the burning frame was "King sends Synaptic to flame bitcoin forums" ) , Future and Windmill was just eh?

Squirrel was funny but it's not going to make sense to somebody who doesn't know anything about bitcoin. But then again if your target audience is just the bitcoin crowd, this probably won't be an issue. But humour is always a good way to raise profile/awareness of something so if you can get something funny that appeals to the non-BC folks, it would help bring positive attention to Bitcoin if the comic gets shared purely because it's funny on its own.

[kiba]

It seems like all the comics are funny to somebody.

Some comics received more scorn than others. Some barely make people laugh.

Very interesting.

Of course, I wish to up the effectiveness of Bitcoin Weekly's comics.

[julz]

As a graphical commentary on the current memes doing the rounds in the bitcoin community - the comic serves a purpose I guess!

'Fiat Kingdom'  made little sense unless the point was to demonstrate the naivety of the bitcoin true-believers.
Why wouldn't the king just either take his tax in bitcoins, or sacks of wheat or liens over their land etc?


 

[ItsASpork]

It really wasn't as bad as I was expecting after reading the thread. You can clearly draw well, and I liked Bitcoin Squirrel.