GamerGate Life
This author responded to a review on the site and his/her reply can be found here in the "Reactions" section. |
Original review author: | oddguy |
Webcomic name: | GamerGate Life |
Author: | Ku Kuru Yo |
Start Date: | December 1, 2014 |
End Date: | February 3, 2020 |
Genre: | Comedy, propaganda and failure. |
Defining Flaw: | I can't decide because this guy somehow equally sucks at everything. |
Rating Summary
Background
More than any other review on the site, this one needs a background section. That's because as soon as I finish it I expect people from GamerGate to start digging into my online history to find proof I wrote it because I'm biased. So let's just go through every possible connection between myself, this site and GamerGate.
First of all, what is "GamerGate"? Well, if you don't know (how I envy you), #GamerGate is what happened after an indie game developer's disgruntled ex-boyfriend accidentally exposed wide-scale corruption in the online gaming journalism community and indie scene after airing out their relationship's dirty laundry online. What he did was sort of shitty but, as it turns out, his ex was a really shitty person, so who gives a crap. What followed was an ongoing shitstorm that has now lasted over a year and involves obsessive video game nerds and the radical MRAs in varying degrees of crazy that have latched onto them and their cause on one side, and SJW scam artists and sociopaths who don't want to stop accepting bribes for reviews on the other. As far as my personal feelings about GamerGate, you could say I support it, but that would be inaccurate. I simply feel less contempt for the people on the pro side than I do for those on the anti side and am amused by the drama that both of them generate.
Now let's continue onto the loose connections between me, BWW, this review and GG so that no one "exposes" something they can point to and pretend I am reviewing this comic for any other reason than it being shit.
A few weeks ago I saw one particularly creepy strip of this comic (which I was already thinking of reviewing) and thought to myself I should maybe get to it. A few days later, lo and behold, someone mentioned BWW on the GamerGate tag on twitter. It was the author of this comic complaining that someone made a thread about him on our forum. Sounds like a coincidence, I know. But my guess is this guy was spurned into action by the same creepy strip. Anyway, I found the thread that was started by some unapologetically biased GamerGate hater who wanted us to be his personal army. Everyone on the forum promptly told him to fuck off because, even if the comic is pretty bad, there is no way that even if he managed to write an unbiased review it would not be seen as shit-slinging after his psychotic first post. Of course he didn't manage that and left us with a half-written review that, even though some of the points in it are valid, constantly goes off on rants about how GamerGate sucks. Since I think both GamerGate and Anti-GamerGate suck, I decided I might as well write the review myself.
That's the backstory, now for the "connections".
I wrote or helped write most of the GamerGate related articles on Encyclopedia Dramatica, both pro and anti. I tried to contact Kukuruyo on twitter about the thread, but he was immediately hostile and called us a "Hate site" (yeah, we hate bad webcomics so I guess he's right), which is rich coming from someone who made a GamerGate comic making fun of 9/11 on the anniversary of 9/11. Only later did I realize that the reason for the anger was that we have once already reviewed one of his godawful comics called "Guild Adventure". Another pro-GG webcomic artist who we sort of reviewed here is Shredded Moose, although it's not the same guy making it now and when Zoe Quinn herself used our article as evidence in an argument with him it made me throw up in my mouth a little. We also have articles about webcomics like Gyno-Star, Dresden Codak and So... You're a Cartoonist?, which are made by people who are decidedly against GamerGate (real powerhouse of retards they've got there). Lastly, at one point someone on whichever gg 8chan board was active at the time, posted a strip of Sandra and Woo where they sort of make fun of radical feminists and then they talked about how that means BWW sucks now and we're all a bunch of SJWs because we don't retroactively think this shitty comic is good because of one strip. You got me. I'm writing this review because I'm super butthurt about that.
That's every link between us and GG that I can think of. If there is anything else then I don't remember it, and if there is anyone else on this site who is somehow connected with this bullshit, then I don't know about it and they didn't help me write this review anyway.
I hope everyone is happy with their full disclosure, so now maybe I can get to talking about why "GamerGate Life" is a pile of shit.
Downfall
Downfall? Ha!
This is the guy who made Guild Adventure. From the start there was nowhere for this comic to go but up... although it obviously never did.
Writing review
The comic stars "Vivian James", the GamerGate mascot, and her cousin "Liliam Wood" (I think that's what she's called... I'm having trouble keeping track of all the moronic Vivian recolors) as they dramatize whatever is happening in GG today. That's the first problem already. The comic is extremely dated. Every strip is about some minor drama that happened today and will be forgotten tomorrow. Even I have trouble remembering what some of these strips are in reference to despite following this nonsense pretty closely since the day it started.
But that's the smallest problem this comic has. Its biggest problem is that it's just not funny.
None of the strips have actual jokes. They just take whatever happened that day and use the two Vivian's to act it out in the most forced way imaginable. Take for example this strip. So the background story behind this is that anti-gg was accusing gg of sending people death threats, and then Milo Yiannopoulos, a GG sympathetic journalist, got knives, syringes and dead animals sent to him in the mail. How does Kukuruyo choose to extract the comedy from this situation? Like this:
Liliam: GamerGate harasses people
Vivian: This GamerGate supporter got a knife in the mail
The End.
That's it. No punchline, no clever twist, just drawing what happened using two sock-puppets and hoping the comedy will just happen on its own. Every single strip is like this and most of them are literally just a cartoon version of something this guy saw on twitter. You see, every now and then someone will say something about GamerGate that they disagree with, so they screencap it and put it up next to a screencap of something that contradicts it, which is admittedly funny. However, Kukuruyo's comics don't make these any more funny. If anything, they only make them less.
The thing is that the events are sort of funny, but Kukuruyo's straightforward, deadpan way of presenting them isn't. Some things are just funnier in reality than they are in fiction because when a real person does them instead of a fictional character you laugh because you can't believe a real person could be that stupid. That's why when you're trying to comment on these things you have to add some sort of twist to it. Let's take into comparison Kris Straub who does Chainsawsuit. Straub recently went full SJW (rather hypocritically considering a few of his past strips, if I might add) and made some strips attacking GamerGate. Later people took those strips and either made parodies or, much like with the screencaps I mentioned, changed some of the text to show the hypocrisy in what Kris is saying (Kris did it to Zen Pencils so it's fair game). Now let's look at all three results. The parody comics made out of Chainsawsuit are better than "GamerGate Life" because they're funny and actually make a good point. The original strips made by Kris are still better than GamerGate Life because, even when they're wrong (or just too one-sided), they're still funny. They have a setup and a punchline. At the bottom of this totem pole is Kukuruyo. His comics are all shit because, even when he makes a good point (which he stole from twitter in the first place), they are in no way entertaining. Instead of following the proper structure of a joke, Kukuruyo's strips always just have Liliam say something that's anti-gamergate's opinion, then Kukuruyo telegraphs the punchline like an 18th century sea captain, and then either something happens that contradicts what she just said or someone blurts out in exposition why she's wrong (or sometimes the punchline is just a stupid fucking meme). You know what Straub's comic would have looked like if Kukuruyo made it?
Vivian: GamerGate doesn't harasses people
Liliam: This other person is harassing me and GamerGate supports him
The End.
And to add insult to injury, the comic has these moronic little dolls in the background doing stupid shit that's supposed to be an extra punchline. Hey, dipshit, why don't you make sure the joke in the foreground is funny first before you try some joke-within-a-joke inception bullshit? You're over here trying to swim in the deep-end when everyone can clearly see you would drown in a puddle of piss.
But at the top of this pyramid of obvious flaws is the fact it's all just propaganda. Vivian is a sock-puppet, Liliam is a straw-man and this comic is Kukuruyo's victorious fistful of hay.
In every comic Liliam acts like a raving lunatic while Vivian remains calm, and then circumstances conspire to prove the former wrong or a hypocrite and leave her broken and humiliated, in following with the typical "I AM SILLY" comic set up to the letter.
Well, at least he doesn't compare people to Hitler...
Wait... what's that on her phone?... It couldn't be...
Yep, a Hitler doll... Well, it must have been a one time thing.
Okay, now he killed Liliam alongside Hitler... Fine, but that's only two strikes.
Goddammit Kukuruyo.
Art review
The art in this comic is the only thing that can actually be considered a joke. Kukuruyo couldn't give enough of a shit about this comic to put any effort into it, but he sure as hell cares enough to put effort into drawing monster girl porn and the level of quality between the two is worlds apart. But the art in GGlife isn't just worse than art in his porn, it's worse than the art in "Guild Adventure" and he drew that shit four years ago.
There really is no way or need to go into detail about what's wrong with the art besides saying it's glaringly lazy and therefore riddled with flaws. However, one particular flaw that I found and think is worth delving a bit deeper into is with the faces. Since Liliam and Vivian are the only recurring characters, and Vivian's face (that's identical anyway) mostly remains emotionless, this flaw is mostly noticeable in Liliam. Liliam's face, size of her facial features in comparison to it and their position therein seem to be constantly changing.
Incidentally, his love of drawing porn tends to spill over a bit into GGlife at times when a character's breasts inexplicably protrude through her shirt or when they are naked for some reason in one of the strips. And speaking of strips, remember that one really creepy comic I mentioned that made me want to write this review? In it Vivian is forcing Liliam to strip for her. But wait! besides the fact this comic has no joke, there is another obvious problem. Didn't the first comic establish that Liliam was Vivian's cousin?
So thanks to your inability to keep it in your pants for five minutes, you've turned Vivian into an incestuous, lesbian sexual predator. Bravo, Kukuruyo.
Bravo.
Author biography
Last time we reviewed one of this guy's comics the author of the review said he is leaving the section empty because he couldn't find anything worthwhile to say about him. I am leaving this section mostly empty because I simply see no need to. His reaction on twitter and the fact he draws monster girl porn online for money is all I really need to know about him.
Conclusion
This comic feels to me like a scam.
This guy, who can clearly draw better, latches on to an online movement known for throwing money at whatever it sees fit and proceeds to create the laziest, most pandering thing he can come up with while shamelessly pimping his Patreon account, seeking attention and trying to sell them various t-shirts he's obviously put more effort into drawing than he ever did the comic they are based on. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to leech off of GamerGate to try and get money or publicity from them (people who have been following this closely will probably be familiar with the names "Devi Ever" and "Steve Tom Sawyer") so I would expect GamerGate to treat this with a bit more incredulity.
To any GamerGator reading this - This comic is a pile of shit. If you like it because it parrots back your own opinions then you're no better than the people on the opposing side that you regularly accuse of being willing to support anyone as long as they agree with them. Sure, Kukuruyo isn't a child molester like Sarah Butts, but his comic is still a heap of shameless, unfunny, strawman laden propaganda. And if you like this comic because you genuinely think it's funny, then I'd like to congratulate you on recently undergoing a successful lobotomy.
And if you still think I'm biased I'll review "Diesel Sweeties" or Tauriq Moosa's turd of a comic next.
Well, that's all of us convinced. Wait a moment while we all go get our credit cards.
Other comics by this artist reviewed on BWW
- Guild Adventure
- Triggerhappy - same webcomic under a different name
Links
- Kukuruyo's DeviantArt account - and I don't really care enough to add any more links.