
You Had Me, And You Lost Me: Why I don't read Megatokyo (2004) - luu
http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/08/you_had_me_and.html
======
Paul_S
When Rodney left it stopped being funny and slowly spiraled into generic
romance and drama.

Sinfest is a sadder loss. You will never see a bigger difference between first
and last comic strip. The first ever Sinfest strip is still best Sinfest.

~~~
danharaj
I just took a look at sinfest after not reading it in several years. I read
back a few days in the archive and I liked it. The style has gotten cuter.

Could you explain what you don't like about it?

~~~
dredmorbius
Tatsuya is taking a stand against the Patriarchy. He will defeat it with his
stomach.[1] Beginning around October, 2011, though with antecedents.

The patriarchy objects, as a patiriarchy does.

The Sisterhood
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-03](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-03)

...Crim gets Lit
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-06](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-06)

...'Nique gets woke
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-07](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-07)

Patriarchy
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-17](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-17)

Rad Fem
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2012-05-06](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2012-05-06)

Peak Dudebro
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2013-09-06](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2013-09-06)
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2013-09-14](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2013-09-14)

Woke Televisio
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2018-10-11](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2018-10-11)

Though the early days had some highlights
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2009-03-15](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2009-03-15)

1\.
[http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2014-10-24](http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2014-10-24)

~~~
knorker
> The patriarchy objects, as a patiriarchy does.

People read sinfest for the humor. You can call it offensive or destructive
humor, but it was humor nonetheless.

Then the comic switched away from humor to being moral lecturing.

It's not the same audience, so naturally you'll lose most of the old
readership, and have to acquire your entirely new audience.

~~~
danharaj
Today's comic is a joke. Maybe you don't get it?

~~~
knorker
Yes, that _must_ be it. _eyeroll_

It's not so much a joke as screaming an on-the-nose message.

------
mcv
I don't know Megatokyo, but I do recnogise the comment about speed and
consistency of updates.

I used to read Order of the Stick, which is a brilliantly funny yet epic
fantasy comic. There used to be fairly regular updates, then it dropped, came
back, dropped again. At some point, he had a very successful Kickstarter, but
somehow things became even more irregular after that. Eventually I sometimes
had to wait more than a month to see how the story continued. And when there's
no need to check for a month, eventually that turns into two months, and I
think I haven't checked it out in more than a year. Years maybe? I should
probably check, but chances are there's now an immense backlog and I don't
know where I left off. Or there's still only a few. I don't know which is
worse.

~~~
ryukafalz
It's a shame RSS isn't more well-known and well-supported these days. Most
webcomics I've followed in the past have had RSS feeds, at which point you
don't need to keep rechecking the site; it'll pop up in your feed reader when
it updates.

~~~
knorker
I could not imagine ever following a webcomic without an RSS feed. I don't
think I've encountered it either.

If I did I'd just think "funny webcomic. It's a shame I'll never see another
one of those".

~~~
zanny
This is exactly how I feel about the myriad artists on Twitter and to some
extent Tumblr if they use the one blog for art / comics and also have
conversations on it.

Blogs aren't galleries or appropriate comic sites.

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a2tech
Wow, Megatokyo. Thats a blast from the past. Next you'll bring up BBspot!

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Truth! I'm kind of amazed that it's still around. I went to check it out and
if anything the pace of updates seems slower than ever. Ten so far this year.
What's amazing to me is that he has $2000 a month of Patreons for this pace of
output. That makes it clear to me that this comic really touched something for
a lot of people.

------
raesene9
I used to read Megatokyo back then but stopped visiting regularly as updates
slowed, and eventually I stopped altogether.

It's interesting that there's a different business model open to webcomics
now, than there was back then, with Patreon (And similar sites).

I back a number of webcomics that way (Gunnerkrigg court, Questionable
Content, Wilde Life, Girl Genius Online) but it only really suits webcomics
that get regular updates, as you're generally paying by the month.

It'll never make them super-rich, I'd guess, but can provide a decent amount
of monthly regular income.

~~~
Crinus
I also used to read Megatokyo and then stopped, although for me was that i
started losing interest in the story. But it was the first webcomic i read and
for a while i was reading a lot of those (i even managed to finish one... i
don't remember the name but it was about some anthropomorphic animal magicians
or something - no, it wasn't erotic at all - and had insanely great quality,
with fully colored pages and detail, which was very rare), although it has
been many years since i followed any (i do not really like the weekly wait...
:-P).

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cryoshon
when i was a kid i would read megatokyo because webcomics seemed like they
were new and cool to me. then, i stopped reading eventually due to a
combination of factors:

1\. the jokes got stale, or i grew out of the humor 2\. the plotline moved too
slowly 3\. i grew out enjoying the "will-they get together / why won't-they
get together" relationship arc(s). as a younger teenager the dorky and
childish romance was relevant to my life, but i grew to find it very cringe
inducing eventually.

i don't really miss reading it.

~~~
taneq
Yeah, I read it too back in the early days, then it just sort of stopped going
anywhere. I've halfheartedly intended to catch up on it for about 14 years
now.

------
mdhughes
I'm one of the people who kicked in for the Megatokyo visual novel
kickstarter. Years later, no visible progress; I'm not even mad, I knew
exactly what I was signing up for, which was supporting a comic that had
slowed to almost non-updating, and maybe getting a thing someday.

New comics are still weekly to monthly, if that. I've completely forgotten the
origin of the current catgirl plot, but possibly Ping (or the catgirl she's
based on?) will finally do something, maybe in the next couple years? Who
knows.

The guy who drew "Sad girl in snow" isn't going to be one of your super
productive Jack Kirbys, he muddles along as best he can, like a lot of us.

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orhmeh09
I am struck by the self-absorbedness and entitlement this person shows as they
go extensively over trivial points relating to a free online webcomic. The
community represented longitudinally exhibits the same odious qualities.

~~~
egypturnash
Websnark, back in 2004 when this post was written, was a _major_ critical
voice in the world of web comics. He read a lot of web comics, was passionate
about the medium, and talked a lot about them in detail.

And _Megatokyo_ was a major web comic back then, despite ever-slower updates.
It was one of the successes of the first generation of people saying “hey what
if I put my weird indy comics up on the World Wide Web”.

This all feels much more trivial thirteen years later. Megatokyo would
probably be unnoticed if it started now. But this was a major, respected
critical voice of that scene talking about the slow decline of one of the
major fixtures of the medium.

------
bartwe
Megatokyo is still in my fixed rotation of daily webcomics...

------
Freak_NL
Fascinating how some articles manage to pop up on the front page. I wonder
what prompted this to be submitted and upvoted?

I remember reading Megatokyo back then (fifteen years ago!) and stopped when
it got too — excuzes le mot — cringey.

Long standing webcomics can change over time as the author(s) age and change.
Some stay fairly constant (e.g., XKCD, The Perry Bible Fellowship), others
change so much they alienate many of the readers (e.g., Sinfest).

 _And some just stay awesome (e.g., Oglaf (NSFW))._

~~~
pavel_lishin
What happened to Sinfest? I remember reading it, but I eventually just sort of
stopped, but I don't remember why.

~~~
Anon84
It’s still around. It effectively went on a political rampage after the Obama
election in 2008

~~~
cotelletta
>I'm launching a new forum for people who like the message of my comic.

>The new forum will be anti-pornography, anti-prostitution.

>It will favor the radical feminist perspective over a liberal or conservative
one.

Radical feminism is a dude telling people what they can and can't do with
their bodies, apparently.

I swear these people want to be puritans but it's too unfashionable where they
live so they wrap it up with some token progressive buzzwords.

