#dobbear

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Asians are all the same, right? The racism of a company cock gurgling moron

Like herpes and unlike the Dobbear, I am back baby.

At this point, deepest apology for my long absence. Personal issues over the last two years prevented me from writing anything and also destroyed for the longest time any desire to really continue the blog.

However, I don’t want to let things unfinished and seeing how the hypocricyofandrewdobson still manages to get some rise out of old Dobson related stuff, I wanted to just return, in order to properly contribute a bit more critical thinking in regard to his old comics.

And while I will not immediately return to my retrospective of SYAC, here is at least (for a start) my opinion on one comic of his, that in my opinion just proved hilarious and controversial in hindsight, and rather racist even back then.

I admit, I don’t know anymore what the title of the comic here is. All I know is, that it came out around 2018, shortly after the release of his “Black Panther” comic, another malignant piece of Dobtrash that has made the rounds online ever since. However, unlike the Black Panther comic, which became the center of a lot of discussion regarding Dobson’s racist assumptions about comic book fans while ironically trying to present himself as woke, this one was weirdly drifting off into obscurity. Which is kinda weird, cause in my opinion, it is way more racist and actually kinda insulting to the very craft Dobson supposedly “dedicated” his life to.

Let me explain.

First, over the course of three panels, Dobson comes essentially off like he is considering the medium of comics as inferior to the medium of movies. Making it look as if comics are unsuccessful because they cannot rail in the same amount of money than certain flics and calling them at best nothing more but a pitching ground for corporations to create new shallow mass product.

Now I am a bit of a realist and I know that, especially in the world of mainstream American superhero comics, this is kinda the case. Most comic book characters, stories and franchises are owned by multibillion dollar corporations, who either have a direct hand in the creation of the product (via corporate mandate for example) and/or use the likeness of the product to make profit in additional, more valuable revenues than the printed medium. Such as cartoons, merchandise and movies. One example I can think of, to show that it isn’t just an American issue: Yugioh. The card game wouldn’t have come to be if there hadn’t been a manga starring a little boy putting together an ancient Egyptian puzzle, but while the original manga ended way back in March of 2004, the card game makes millions globally still after 25 years and counting.

But that doesn’t change the fact, that comics as a medium still have value. Without the stories told within their pages, we wouldn’t have characters such as Captain America, Superman, the Mask, the Ninja Turtles and so on to begin with. Don’t get me even started on stories that aren’t falling into the American mainstream comic trend, but still succeeded in the printed comic medium partly because of genuine artistic and profound value such as Maus, Barefoot Gen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, TinTin and a shitton of (other) stuff from Europe and Asia.

So when Dobson, who always acted like he is proud to be a cartoonist and that comics are a superior medium to others, suddenly reduces them to just being a “pitch ground for better stuff down the line” at best, I as a fan of the medium and just the art of creating stories in itself, get kinda pissed.

Additionally, the way how he compares movies to be better than comics, is severely flawed.

He brings up the fact, that “Captain America: Civil War” made over one billion dollars at the box office as an example, while pointing out the fact, that most single comic issues barely manage to sell 100.000 copies, while holding up a copypasted “Civil War” issue.

Already, Dobson essentially compares apples with bananas, while also giving both false and incomparable data, that also ignores many aspects to be considered.

For starters: He compares the earnings of both movies and comics with two different values. For movies, he goes by the monetary profit a superhero movie could possibly make, while for the comic issue, he goes by the total number of copies sold.

But here is the thing: Assuming the average selling price of a comic is at 4 dollars for a single 30 page issue, selling 100.000 copies would ring in like 400.000 dollars. And considering that producing one issue likely costs a company less than 20.000 dollars (obvious costs for mass production and distribution not withstanding) they can still make a decent profit this way from ONE issue alone. One issue. Not multiple issues of a long running, but sadly underperforming series. All of that by the way doesn’t even account for the fact, that most single issues at best tell only a quarter of a decent short story nowadays and ignores later “long term” factors, such as reprints of the issue, late term buying of the issue, tradepaperback sells of the issue, the longterm effect and cultural impact the issue may have on the actual series or plot continuity  (such as Amazing Spiderman 122, aka “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”). Don’t get me even started on the fact, that many of these issues get first sold in the US and only over the course of one year or longer may then additionally be sold in other parts of the world, therefore bringing in even more money for the publisher.

Example: The Duck comics by Don Rosa, which earn more than four times more in Europe, than they ever did in America, despite the guy being from California. Finally, a a little add addendum: that example Dobson gives indirectly via the “Civil War” issue? A quick google search revealed, that Civil War issue 1 sold over 300k copies in May of 2006 alone. Sure, not necessarily the best numbers ever for a single issue (as evident by the following list: https://bookriot.com/bestselling-comics-of-all-time/ )but still nothing to be ashamed of.

And yes, I know that we live currently in a time, where comic book sells have dropped significantly for a variety of reasons, one of them being an overall lack of decent stories. But as long as other stuff still manages to run freaking circles around American superheroes (*cough* One Piece *cough*) I wouldn’t say the medium itself is dead. Just a specific branch of it is suffering from a lack of quality and the customers are jumping ship.

A superhere movie meanwhile is a completely different beast. Ever since “The Avengers” came out in 2012, most superhero movies are 150-250 million dollar behemoths, that get overhyped by advertisement campaigns that are almost equally as expensive and try to trick the audience into believing, that they all are somehow the next big mindblowing thing on the big screen. Plus there hasn’t really been a superhero movie in the last 10+ years, that didn’t release simultaneously worldwide, instead of only coming out in the USA, and then a few months later, in other parts of the world.

So is it any wonder then, if a superhero movie that got advertised like the second coming of a saint, makes 1 billion, when there are already billions of potential customers worldwide all at once when the product launches?

That number btw becomes actually less impressive, once you start to think about how it came to be. Something our blue bear obviously didn’t.

See, on average every movie theater demands like what, 12-14 dollars per movie nowdays?

If we divide the box office of Civil war (1.152 billion btw) with 12 dollars, that makes on average 100 million people worldwide who watched the movie. A bit more than one or two percent of the worlds population. Not to forget, that of the box office success we have to substract such things as production cost of the movie, advertisement, the earnings of the theaters… so suddenly the movie may at best have had only earned one quarter of its box office for Disney as actual profit.

Not to forget, Dobson made that comic in 2018, when superhero movies on average did ring in so much money, because of the hype machine. But now we have 2023 and within the last five years (and especially 2023 itself) we have seen how superhero movies can also utterly fail to make money or even earn just enough to make back the production cost. Birds of Prey, Eternals, Ant Man 3, that Secret Invasion streaming show that still cost over 200 million… Do I need to get on?

Bottom line, Dobson’s indirect jab at comics as the less profitable revenue doesn’t hold that much water really in the real world, where once the hype dies down, comics may actually prove themselves as the more valuable longterm medium. Even if it may just be for the fact, that they end up staying longer relevant in the popcultural subconscious than the current movies, which tend to lose relevance with each new hastily produced and released installment in the franchise.

But where this comic really shines and shows Dobson’s ignorance on a cultural level, is in the last panel. When all off sudden it turns “racial” by claiming that Asian people, unlike “traditional” comic readers (aka white, in Dobbear s eyes therefore instantly racist people), would eat a Marvel character like Amadeus Cho up.

Question Dobson: Why do you assume, they would eat him up? You give no real argument based on anything the character does storywise, that the “target audience” may find admirable. So I can only think, that your reasoning is, because he is ever so slightly east asian coded.

Boy, do we have to unpack not just a can of worms, but a whole package of cans now.

First, the chosen language by saying “eat it up”. When being a writer, you should know that you need at times to choose your words wisely, because of the sheer implications they can carry. And the statement “eat it up” sounds way to close to a negative statement like “suck it up”. Making it come off as if Dobson considers Asian people to be mindless cattle that will consume the grub the House of Mouse will give them without question or any desire for actual quality to it.

Second, it recks of a certain mind set I hate within the American entertainment industry and some of its creators and consumers. That mind set being, that “non-traditional” American cultures supposedly don’t know better than Americans in what is okay for the sake of representation and entertainment or not. It’s a mindset that goes beyond the necessity of e.g. localizing a foreign product to the national market, by e.g. creating a sterilized, corporately mandated and rather unrealistic depiction of another culture within their product, that will fall apart as soon as the people who are supposed to be represented get a proper look at it and realize, how pandering and often times badly researched, if not outright offensive, it is.

Only recently did we see in the world of animation how that can backfire, when Disney released the trailer for “Primos” an upcoming animated show supposedly about a half Latina girl spending her summer vacation with her annoying cousins, people calling it based on the intro (and a leaked pilot) pandering towards a latino audience in a racist manner. And guess what: currently, Disney shelves it and tries to bury its existence like Dobson his old inflation art.

Dobson himself has actually indulged in that sort of shit kinda, back with his infamous Nintendo comic.

Essentially calling the “true”, Nintendo corporation approved depiction of his childhood Nintendo heroes disgraceful, for not falling in line with the late 80s depictions he saw in localized, made in America products such as the DiC cartoons. That and minor homophobia mixed with misogyny by calling Link “girly” for having longer blond hair since Ocarina of Time and blaming fangirls for it.

Third, and that is kinda related to my prior point, the reality of things is, that “Asians” actually did not eat up that sort of thing in the last couple of years. Sure, there is always that thing about a Chinese market. the big movie companies try to pander to and may succeed with some dumb action flics featuring big robots.

But the reality is, that not even people living in a dictatorship will eat up every trash you give to them, just because it comes from Hollywood or is supported by their glorious leadership. Disney tried to create two pandering messes of movies for Chinese people to watch, called Mulan (the live action adaptation) and that Shang Chi movie. And how did they do there? Oh right! The government did not even allow Shang Chi to be released and Mulan was released but supposedly didn’t do so well, considering (COVID not withstanding) it only made 70 million globally!

Don’t get me even started on every human right controversy in relation to the later, starting with filming in China near a concentration camp and ending with the main actress being essentially a Chinese propaganda puppet.

So, if those movies flopped, why would Chinese people for example flock for an Asian Hulk? A hulk that is not even Chinese but Korean.

See, this is another issue that fails with the example: The actual choice of character Dobson name dropped is actually kinda terrible.

For those unaware: Amadeus Cho is a supporting character in the Marvel comics, created in 2005 by American writer Greg Pak and artist Takeshi Miyazawa. The later, despite the name being very east Asian, sounding, actually being from Canada. Now both do have east Asian roots so to speak (Pak  e.g. is the son of an Korean-american man with a Caucasian woman), but they also have grown up within a society that taught them both western social values more so than we would see in east Asian countries. So with the creators already not necessarily having the most real life experience with the average mindset of a Korean citizen, can we really say that their actual creation helps “represent” those people of a foreign, non-american culture?

And that is not even covering stuff like the actual story of the character itself.

See, in the comics, Cho is supposed to be an American-Korean genius (wish fullfillment much, Greg?) and one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe. His parents named him after Amadeus Mozart (a pretty white motherfucker as far as I remember) and he grew up under Methodist beliefs. So basically the “Korean heritage” of the character has already been thrown out of the window. Now I don’t expect the character to act stereotypical Korean, listen to K-pop, declare bulgogi to be his favorite dish or any of that shit. But when you want to sell me the character as being in some way or another connected to his ancestral culture, shouldn’t he engage at least in some “Korean coded” things?

I mean, the character of Anne Boonchuy in Amphibia is a Thai-American who acts more like a 13 year old girl that learns to be less selfish and impulsive over the course of the show and whose “heritage” isn’t thrown at us, the viewer, most of the time. In fact, Anne herself acknowledges that she e.g. can’t really speak thai, despite her own mother being fluent in it and a season 3 episode reveals, that Anne is “begrudgingly” a part of the L.A. thai community. And yet, in connection to the shows story and as part of Anne’s characterization, her heritage is acknowledged and plays a part of who she is. Even if it simply means she knows how to cook certain thai dishes, loves her parents and their customs, helps out in their restaurant, can speak a few words thai and knows the basics of Muay Thai, a form of martial arts (and fighting sport) from Thailand.

Amadeus doesn’t even have Korean parents anymore, because they were killed as part of his tragic hero backstory. Nor has he ever visited an Asian country. Oppps.

To build further up on it, Amadeus becomes for the longest time simply a major supporting character in the Marvel universe for the likes of Hulk and Hercules, two white coded characters. Sure, he plays a major role in the defeat of some cosmic horror level villains (such as Mikaboshi in the Chaos God storyline most people forgot even existed) but it takes a long time for him to become a “A-lister” so to speak.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t till after “Secret Wars” in 2016 (eleven years after the character was created), that Amadeus thanks to a chain of events eventually got his chance to Hulk out. And then they still had to kill Bruce Banner to make Amadeus “stand out” initially (don’t worry, Bruce came back. I mean, characters actually staying dead in comics, so that heroes can learn there are consequences? Preposterous) In fact, Amadeus hasn’t really proven himself as a decent “solo” act. Instead he became a member of the Champions (among Miles Morales, Mrs. Marvel, Vision’s daughter Viv. Nova and Cyclops), essentially creating yet another superhero team for teenaged vigilantes. Despite the fact, Cho himself should be by now in his mid 20s.

Now look, I do not want to shit talk the character. Partly because I haven’t read everything he was in myself and partly because in the few things I did see him in (both pre- and post Hulk) he was okay. He is a decent hero and person, who tries to do good, even if he screws up here and there. That is something I can admire in a character in general. But he is not a good “representation” of another culture, because his complexion and minor physical features aside, he is NOT embodying even minor values or traditions of that foreign culture. He is simply a Korean-American (or technically Canadian), who falls more on the American side of things.

So essentially, Dobson who virtue signaled on multiple occasions how bad it is when companies he didn’t like tried to speak on behalf of other cultures, would have no problem at all to ask for Asian people to swallow this obviously “Made in American” product. The “Made in America” line actually working both on a metaphorical and a storytelling level, cause trying to google what “east Asian coded” heroes in the Marvel Universe actually come from an Asian country instead of being simply born on American soil, is pretty damn small.

After 20 minutes I only found Shang Chi, as he was born in China, and that character was created as part of kung-fu exploitation in the 70s by white dudes.

Yaiks

However, none of that tops the next two points that really sell Dobson to me as an American centralistic racist. Or at least a twat who doesn’t understand how through bad wording he comes of as ignorant of other people’s cultures.

The way he generalizes Asian people in his statement, while also ignoring the actual accomplishments in the creation of entertainment in multiple Asian countries.

If you’ve read closely what I typed, you may have seen that I used the term Asian at times in tandem with the term “east Asian” to e.g. describe Amadeus Cho.

And that had a very deliberate reason. While I was not a fan of geography in school, even I know that Asia as a continent is not “nationally” as homogenous as let’s say Australia or North America. In fact, Asia is the biggest continent on the planet, hosts more than half of earth’s population and consists of at least 47 internationally acknowledged states.

States such as Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, North- and South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran and so on.

Now what all these states have in common, is that they have their own unique historical, social and “racial” culture and background. Heck, religiously speaking, Asia is the cradle of the world.

As such, Dobson stating that a “Korean coded” character such as Amadeus Cho (who is only Korean on the most surface level and would technically just be a legacy character of yet another white person) would be an immediate hulk smash hit with all these different people of different backgrounds…. Yeah, it sounds like condescending, colonization inspired shit, a smooth brain would come up with.

To Dobson “Asia”, at least based on that comic, is only defined as the “yellow skinned” people from the far east, who like rice, noodles, spicy food and give us anime, Godzilla, fireworks, buddhism and communism. It does not include anyone from the middle east or of more European ancestry. And if you are even remotely familiar about history, you would also know that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese all around do not e.g. like to be thrown into a pot with the others for a variety of reasons. Many of them political.

Or to sum it up even shorter: Dobson insinuated that a very shallow, “east Asian” coded American comic character would be an immediate hit with more than 47 different countries, ignoring that not all of them share the same background despite being part of the “same” landmass. And in doing so, he simultaneously generalized and denounced entire groups of people based on their racial and cultural background, which in as far as I am aware of, is considered racist.

But the “racism” is supposedly justified, because “representation” matters, it would be giving the middle finger to “traditional” comic fans and those nations and their culture are underrepresented globally.

Which is baloney.

Don’t get me wrong, I myself think that representation does matter. But the world does not necessarily rely on the good old US-Ayy only to give it to us.

Cause a lot of the Asian nations I brought up here? They have their own entertainment industry and stories, which again, get ignored by Dobson to make a dumb and false point.

I mean, manga is currently dominating the international comic market, all while Japan has also a booming animation industry and some of the most iconic heroes in modern popculture with the likes of Son Goku, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai etc.

China has a prominent -if propaganda driven- movie industry.

India has Bollywood and delivers some of the most ridiculous but awesome musical movies on the planet.

Russia had authors such as Tolstoy and movie directors, that redefined the “art” of filmmaking.

Korea had a few years ago one of the biggest streaming hits with Squid Game, while also earning an Oscar for a movie titled Dobs- I mean “Parasite”.

Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey… even nations that have not entertainment living up to “western standards” still produce stuff in some way or form to entertain the masses and their people. Just google up the character Kara Murat aka the avenger of Anatolia.

And don’t get me even started on the sheer ton of mythology, stories and history each of their cultures have provided the world with. Journey to the West? Baba Yaga, the entirety of the Gilgamesh epos...

And yet, there is this indirect assumption by Dobson, that all of them would be so deprived of “heroes” in their media and folklore, they would letch on second hand shop Hulk? Fuck off, Dobbear. I know you like to suck corporate cock as long as you think they are woke and you have childhood nostalgia for them, but this is pathetic. Take Amadeus before A Rama Raju comes around and roundhouse kicks him back to Canada. Then get the taste of mouse smegma of your Disney cock gobbling lips.

#adobsonartwork #syac #hypocrisyofandrewdobson #amadeus cho #racisim #mcu #tom preston #andrew dobson #i am back #back again #guess who's back #Youtube

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Something I've never understood about Dobson is, for all the shit he rightfully got during the time online, why does the use of bucket is one that's always brought up against him? I've seen many beloved artists on their videos and livestreams use it, including one of the animators of the Lackadaisy pilot, but only Dobbear gets shit over it.

Because Dobson also wants to look down his nose and lecture other artists for “not drawing the right way”, and pointing out the fillbucket thing makes him mad.

Ergo, people use the fillbucket insult against him.

#andrew dobson #tom preston #fill bucket #adobsonartworks #adobsonart #ask #anonymous

[tgtncomic]

So I just realized there's no Feminist hate for Princess Solange from Code of Princess. In the game, she is ditzy and lighthearted. She will do anything to protect her people.

This is my DobBear doodle. Gave him the pose of "The Scream" as he says his infamous line. I didn't do much but turned him into a Fuzzy Wuzzy reject.

I'm sorry Dobs, you may have your pride in drawing lesbians, but I have pride in drawing women as women. And we deserve the sexy.

Also, this it what Princess Solange from the game, Code of Princess, looks like. I'm not exaggerating her bikini armour.

#the hypocrisy of andrew dobson #i'm no artist #DobBear #doodles #need to stop watching YouTube #creativity high

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Is there any story behind the blue bear? When was it introduced into his comics?

There is no story. As I explained back in my last master post reviewing SYAC (reminds me, need to get back to that this year), Dobson really just "suddenly" shifted from a human self insert to this sort of self insert, though he would for the longest time claim that the Dobbear was not a self insert. But ust as with a lot of things, that was obvious bullshit.

Basically, Dobson was just sick of people rightfully telling him that SYAC was a self insert comic and that his main character was a more embellished version of who he really was. So to avoid that any further, he came up with the blue bear as "main character". But instead of people looking at the blue bear and identifying as a completely separate entity to the author, people just -still rightfully- called him out on the shit. And as time went on, the bear became so closely associated with Dobson and his shenanigans, it was the one thing people identified him with closer than even his alternate username of Tom Preston

[soyouareandrewdobson]

What is the most best art that dobson ever made

This I would say. While the picture fails in one certain way (seriously, how can one fuck up the number of fingers for decades like that!) , I do think it is a decent overall composition of washed out colors that manages to create a decent setting and a character, that genuinely intrigues me design wise. Simply called "The Professor" this picture just seems to portray a random traveller, seemingly exploring a strange world.

I don't really know what it is that I enjoy about the pic. I guess the color composition, combined with how the character actually conveys a certain sense of personality in the way he is drawn. Even being way more detailed then Alex ze Pirate, Danny and Spot and other characters he would make at the time this came out (late 2000s). Weirdly enough, the Professor only exists as a character and sketch, but never has been utilized in any genuine project by Dobbear. Weird frankly, cause I can totally imagine the character to make a great mentor figure in some isekai inspired RPG story.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Dobbear! SYAC: The Master Review 6

I am so going to ruin someone’s childhood with that now, but...

guys, it had to be done!

Dashing and daring…

Courageous and caring!

Faithful and friendly…

 With stories to share!

 Doesn’t at all apply to this one artist…

Lesbian obsessed and  each nerddom’s nightmare!

Dobby BEAR!

Whinning here and there and everywhere!

Making claims that are beyond compare…

This is our Dobby-Bear!

Yeah, if you can’t guess, around now is the time I am going to put down the kids gloves and will really dig into why SYAC is garbage. And a huge factor into this, is in part Dobson’s self insert past 2012.

The existence of the blue bear as Dobson officially calls it (or Dobbear as most people call it) is in my opinion rather baffling already in terms of design choices.

I get e.g. that Dobson wanted to distance himself of his past humanoid self inserts as much as possible. But why of all things a bear?

The fact I am focused on that may sound weird, but hear me out for a bit. For starters, I know that Dobson likes western animation. And seeing how western animation has for the longest time been dominated by anthropomorphic animals, I can understand why he would redesign himself as a funny cartoon animal.

But there are at least three things that feel weird about it. First, Dobson had made it clear in the past that he hates furries. So him actually redesigning himself as an anthropomorphic animal is kinda weird

In fact, Dobson himself acknowledges that realization in one of his strips shortly after his fursona took over.

Second, of all the animals to choose from, why a bear? This question is in so far valid, as that bears are not necessarily one of the first to go animals, furries or western animators tend to go for when designing an anthro. And before any furries or anthro enthusiasts are calling me a hater, let me make one thing clear: I like anthropomorphic cartoon and comic characters too, and am okay with most furries. As long as you don’t have a diaper fetish, are a pedophile  or hurt actual animals, you can do and enjoy whatever you like.

But I am also aware enough of furry culture to know, that bear based anthros are most of the time hyper sexualized and muscular, connecting them to how the term “bear” is used in real life gay culture. Which is okay, I think it is just a funny coincidence that Dobson choose an animal, that most furries associate with a life style that Dobson is deeply afraid of, even if he claims to be an LGBT ally.

And as stated earlier, bears are not necessarily the go to animals for animators.

Don’t get me wrong, we all know some cartoon bears like Winnie the Pooh, Yogi Bear, Poh and the main cast of TaleSpin (btw, Kit Cloudkicker fan for life). But lets be honest here; ducks, mice, rabbits, canines, felines, equines and any other “easily to domesticate” animal in the real world tends to make better for easily recognizable cartoon characters than something that can reach a size of 3 meters tops and weigh over 500 pounds.

Truth be told, the pool of cartoon bears is so small, these are the first two things that came to my mind when thinking what may have inspired the Dobbear

And wouldn’t you know? According to Dobson, the Carebears were supposedly the main inspiration for his design.

 Unfortunately, this is also more or less the most I could find of Dobson addressing what went into the creation of the character.

Which kinda brings me also to the third issue as why I think the bear redesign is weird; It is too sudden.

One day Dobson draws himself as a shaved 20 something, the next day he is a fedora wearing Carebear clone, likely created and then rejected by Care Bear villain No Heart, as part of a plot to create a mole when conquering Care-A-Lot.

… and now I need to reevaluate my choices in life, that I was able to make such an elaborate Carebear joke.

It is just a change of design that in my opinion should have been addressed either outside of the comic or in context of it. Which it kinda is, but isn’t.

See, this is the first strip with the blue bear

And then only 13 strips or so later in something called “Continuity” is Dobson more or less willing to address the change…

And he does so in a passive aggressive manner, with Persistent Pam as a stand in for those asking him what is going on, while Dobson just dismissively continues working.

On one hand, you can argue that this is just the joke. The change happened, don’t bother with it, just enjoy what is still to come. And you know, I don’t want to make a rope out of everything Dobson ever posted, including that comic.

But then you have also to account for the fact, that Dobson would eventually associate himself with the blue bear so much, he made him his avatar and icon for his comics and online accounts. In fact, that one comic I posted WAY BACK in the first Master post of Dobson reminiscing how he started SYAC?

For reasons that are a bit confusing to me, he redrew himself (badly I have to add) as the blue bear in one of his earliest strips ever. The one where he belittles the manga fangirl for drawing manga. So I have to ask, what is going on here? Has Dobson increasingly decided to reset his past? Does he want to destroy any traces of his “human” self in his work to create the illusion to any new readers, that he never was as controversial of a person as he was and that there never was a need for him to reimagine and reinvent himself? Is this 1984? And how many of you realize that this paragraph is just me going conspiracy nuts for the sake of entertainment?

But still, it is kinda weird that he went to the bother of redrawing his human self in that one background sketch as a bear. Plus, I honestly think Dobson never even attempting to “explain” the change in the pages of his comics is a wasted opportunity for some decent jokes. Like every time Dobson tries to explain why he is a bear now, something interrupts him or we only get fragments of a story that if we put them together would be as ridiculous as the entirety of “Trapped in the Closet”.

I mean, the dumbest joke idea I have in mind is that Dobson went to build a bear to get a present for a family member. Instead he was build into a bear and later on successfully sued the company, which explains why he can afford to live despite not really working on comics anymore but lecture people badly about the evils of nerd culture.

So yeah, three major things about the design choice that more or less confuse me.

But here is the thing: Confusion is nothing compared to feeling genuine disdain for the design at hand. And compared to Dobson’s earlier human designs, Dobbear is just utterly unlikable.

A lot of that boils down to the following three facts:

1. From a certain point in time on (which I will cover in more detail later on) Dobson uses his bearsona primarily as a soapboxing mouth piece to talk about “politics” in nerd culture. Or at least what Dobson perceives as politics, coming off like a condescending jackass who believes among other things that white people are inherently incapable to identify with black people…

 … or that comic book shops have radicalized nerd culture, essentially calling them terror cells.

Which btw are so inherently offensive to me, I promise I will cover these two separately. One even sooner than the other.

2. If Dobbear is not talking about politics, he will tend to be a smug asshole to other people (most of the time strawmen) or their interests in one way or another. Being e.g. used by Dobson to express his disdain for criticism…

 or to mock legit criticism he had gotten by exaggerating things.

 All while also tending to make his critics look like inherent assholes.

These two facts, combined with Dobson’s average erratic behavior online on platforms such as dA, twitter and tumblr over the years, pretty much assured such a close association between the two, that a separation between artist and creation was not possible anymore, condemning them.

And for the record; Dobson was always a bit of a whinner who liked to act as if he was a better nerd than the average comic book fan. Otherwise, we would have not e.g. gotten Danny and Spot out of it.

But as the years went by in the last decade, Dobson turned from someone in his mid 20s, desperate to be seen as a “quirky” and likable internet persona (like certain internet reviewers), into a virtue signaling, lesbian obsessed asshole who likely regrets his life choices.

… Like certain internet reviewers.

But seriously, Dobson turned into someone who would flip the lid at something as ridiculous as Cheeto flavored chicken fries…

 While also being just the worst type of condescending nerd….

All while losing his mind about politics. Especially after Donald Trump became president

And just as Dobson became a radicalized left winged jackass who saw politics in everything he consumed, so did by default Dobbear, because Dobbear was not a character with his own personality, but a mouth piece.

Something I am about to get into detail in the near future. But till then, I want to cover in the next post the following third and final fact about Dobbear that really makes him unlikable to me: The fact he can’t be happy.

#syac #Andrew Dobson #dobbear #tom preston #so...you are a cartoonist #review #master review #webcomic #comics

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Okay, I briefly looked through the SYAC comics and I remebered another recurring character that was only introduced around the point of the Dobbear era (they even made an appearance in his patreon video). Didn’t he refer to them as “a personification of webcomic advertisers”, of have I got this wrong?

It was the “manifestation of his advertising revenue website” and he only used it for one set of comics and a couple past that. It was just him going “if it wasn’t for this site, I’d be way more popular and rich!”

Because nothing is ever his fault.

Also the absolute irony of that last sentence.

#andrew dobson #tom preston #blue bear #syac #strawman #dobson’s art #adobsonartworks #adobsonart #ask #anonymous

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

<1/2> Seeing some of the Dobbear redesigns making him cute and approachable, I wanted to take a stab at leaning in to the bear's jerkish, skeevy design but in a goofier way. I looked over Dobson's strips trying to really figure out what it was that made him so smarmy and unlikeable, and looking that closely at his artwork really made me appreciate just how ugly and gummy it really is. How the bear's head is constantly misshapen. His ears in the wrong place. His features inconsistent.

“<2/2> It's just really remarkable how his style hits this weird uncanny valley of cartooniness. It's even more apparent when he draws other properties in his style but even his own characters just have this unpleasant feel to them that nags at the back of your head... good *enough* but wrong in some way, and once you've really started to look you can't unsee it. And his older stuff didn't have that kind of feel to it. You can really see where he just decided to... give up, I guess.”

At some point, Dobson decided that since he could already draw something, it was okay to be lazier and take shortcuts because “I already know how to do it, this just saves time”. And I feel like he kept doing that until he wasn’t able to draw something the normal way anymore. Between that, having no real interest in actively trying to improve, and meshing unnecessary details and lines to his simple manga-like style due to a growing hatred of anime, Dobson really just kept shooting himself in the foot as he went along.

Interesting breakdown on the issues with his art, by the way.

#andrew dobson #tom preston #lazy #detail lines #art criticism #adobsonartworks #adobsonart #ask #anonymous

[soyouareandrewdobson]

…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4

Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.

Persistent Pam

 Curmudgeonly Carl

And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.

No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once

All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)

And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo

Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips

 And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)

 She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub

 Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.

As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.

In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.

Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.

 However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.

Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…

On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend

BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…

… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.

 Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.

But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.

Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.

Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?

 Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.

Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.

 The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen

Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.

Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.

BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.

 Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.

And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!

This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS

And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…

 You can frankly go and screw yourself.

On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.

Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.

I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.

But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.

There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…

And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.

 What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.

For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?

I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.

Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.

Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…

And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen

And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.

As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.

Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.

Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.

Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.

There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them

 You failed.

Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.

Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.

Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?

 Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.

The comic here is actually called politics. … ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.

Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.

Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.

When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.

Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?

And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.

It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!

… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.

 And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!

And that is it.

Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.

Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.

#adobsoncomic #Andrew Dobson #Tom Preston #comic #webcomics #syac #so...you are a cartoonist #review #master review

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Dobson's Patreon: An Addendum to His Monument of Sins

(The following is a submission from @soyouareandrewdobson, meant to be an addendum to the multi-post submission @ripsinfest made a while back. Ironically, this one also had issues when being submitted, so I’ll be copypasting it here with all the images and links originally intended.)

In 2018, user @ripsinfest wrote a multipart series of posts for THOAD, recounting Dobson’s attempt to establish a patreon in 2015 and how it resulted in failure on a massive scale, to the point that his patreon is arguably “a monument to all his sins”.

Personally I think the post series is extremely well researched, rather “neutral” in terms of tone (letting the posts provided as evidence speak more for themselves than the opinion of the writer) and gives a detailed but quick rundown on what went wrong. Primarily that Dobson overestimated his own “value” as an artist and did NOT attempt to give his few supporters what they wanted through his artwork posted around the time.

I do however want to use the opportunity to also point out at certain obvious things that in my opinion (and likely the opinions of others) added to the failure of the patreon account, that were not accounted for in detail and are primarily related to how the internet perceives popularity and Dobson’s inability to understand, how to “sell” and make himself look good to the public.

To begin with, let’s just point out a certain truth about making money via Patreon: To do so, depends a lot on your popularity as a content creator online. That is simply because the more popular you are, the bigger your fanbase is and as such the more likely a certain percentage of people may be willing to donate money to you and your work in hopes they get something out of it, even if it is just the altruistic feeling of having helped someone they “like”. It doesn’t take a genius to see, how e.g. internet reviewers such as Linkara or moviebob (around 2800 and 4400$ earnings via patreon each month respectively) can make quite some money, while other, more obscure content creator or artists barely make money to go by, earning essentially pocket money at best.

In addition, popularity is fleeting. A few years ago e.g. internet personality Noah Antweiler aka The SpoonyOne managed to earn 5000$ a month via patreon, just shortly after establishing his account. But his lack of content over the years AND his toxic behavior online resulted in a decline of popularity and with it people jumping off his Patreon. As such, Antweiler only earns nowadays around 290$ a month via Patreon and most of that money is likely form people who have forgotten they donate to him in the first place anyway.

And Noah is not the only one who over the course of the last couple of years lost earnings. Brianna Wu makes barely more than he does, despite having once been the “darling” of the internet when the Gamergate controversy was at its peak. Many Bronies who once made more than 2k via video reviews on a show about little horses at the peak of its popularity (2013-15) earn less than 300-800 on average nowadays because interest on the show as well as people talking about it has declined.

Heck, in preparation of writing this piece I found out, that one of the highest grossing patreons nowadays is “The last podcast on the left”, a podcast that earns more than 67k a month by making recordings on obscure and macabre subjects on a regular basis.

So there you have it folks: As the interests of the internet users change, so does the popularity of certain people online and -in case they have a patreon account or similar plattforms- their chances of making money via their content.

Which now brings us back to Dobson, who was not popular at all at that particular time and managed to become even less popular as the months and years passed by.

Sure, Dobson had his fans via deviantart, people knew who he was. But the later was more because of “infamy” than popularity and the number of fans he had accumulated online were representing people interested in him at least since 2005 and did not quite represent his actual present day numbers of supporters at the time.

And mind you, the number of supporters was less than 100k, most of them likely underaged deviantart users. And if my research indicates something, then that most content creators with a halfway decent patreon earning need at least 100k+ followers in total. Because of those fans, only around 1-3% will on average then spend money on you, if you actually create content they enjoy and on a regular basis.

Which brings up the next major problem: Dobson did not create content people enjoyed and that in more than one meaning of the word.

On one hand, as pointed out by ripsinfest, he barely released any content at all over 2015 after a few initial months, despite the fact that he was obviously active online a lot, as shown by his presence on twitter. On the other hand, the few things he did create were not the stuff people wanted.

As an example: If you go to a restaurant and pay for a pizza, you expect the cook to give you a pizza. If however for some reason he just gives you a soda, you get ripped off and never come back. In Dobson’s case, the thing people wanted was not pizza but comic pages. But what he delivered was mostly bland fanart, such as of Disney and Marvel characters crossing over or KorraSami. Sure, a few strips of “So…you are a cartoonist” were still released at the time, but not really many.

To give an overview: Taking the release dates on Dobson’s official SYAC site into account, he released around 16 strips of it between March and August of 2015, the last two being “No Leia” being titled “Zip line”

Afterwards, the next official strip released was “Anything at all” in October of 2016.

Now to be fair, there was at least one more strip at the time Dobson released via patreon, that is also save to see on kiwifarms and other plattforms, which has not been uploaded to his official SYAC page. Likely because he simply forgot about it.

But I think that in itself should tell you something about Dobson’s work ethics when it comes to his webcomics. He promoted his patreon in his own video as a way to ensure he can make comics in a timely fashion again for others to enjoy, but in an environment where certain artists are capable to create multiple strips per week at minimum, Dobson could overall not manage to produce more than 16 over a course of six months, which means an average production of 3 strips per month.

For comparison, Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous sinfest webcomic (a garbage fire of epic proportions from a TERF who I think should be put on a watch list) has produced on average 4 strips per week, including full page Sunday strips, for years and nowadays even releases stuff on a daily basis to pass the covid crisis. So a mad man who wants to see trnas people die, has better work ethics than Dobson.

In other words, people expected Dobson to actually get back into creating comics (with some even expecting a return of Alex ze Pirate), but he got in fact even lazier than before, releasing only SYAC strips and random fanart as a product. Which he then also tried to justify as his choice to make because a) he had mental health issues and b) no one can tell him what to do.

And sure, people do not need to tell you what to do. But when people pay/donate money to you expecting to get a certain product in return, they should get the product. Linkara e.g. by all means doesn’t NEED to review comics to have a fullfilling life, but he got famous for his reviews, people want to see his reviews and they pay him for those reviews. So obviously, he will continue those things.

Then there is also the fact that despite Dobson’s claims how he wants to create comics for everone to enjoy and that he aims to keep his artwork online for free so anyone can view it…(his exact words in his promotional video AND text on his patreon once upon a time)

…the reality was, that he wanted to use patreon as a paywall. Something I actually kinda pointed out at on my own account (shameless self promotion) once, but want now to elaborate a bit. Basically at the time Dobson opened up his patreon, he also was on the verge of leaving deviantart as a platform people could look at his work behind. Which he eventually did.

Meaning that the only major platforms for people to watch any “new” stuff by him were his patreon or art sites such as the SYAC homepage or andysartwork. Which granted, he did EVENTUALLY put his stuff on.

But unlike other content creators who would put “patreon exclusive” new content up on more public plattforms often within a few days, weeks or a month after making them “patreon only” at first, Dobson waited longer and did barely anything to promote his sites as places to look his stuff up for a public audience. In doing so creating a “bubble” for himself that hurt him more than it helped, as Dobson made himself essentially come off as a snob.

A snob who did not create content for everybody to enjoy, but ONLY for those willing to pay him at least one dollar per month. As evident e.g. by the fact that as time went by, certain content was never released outside of his patreon at all, such as a SYAC strip involving Dobbear screaming at the computer because he saw a piece of art that featured tumblr nose.

Lastly, there is the issue of his patreon perks and stretch goals.

See, his perks were essentially non existent. Aside of the beggars reward of “my eternal thank you if you donate 1 dollar”, two other perks that come to my mind were the following: If you donated up to 5$ at minimum, you got your name thrown into a lottery to potentially win buttons and postcards of his artwork. Unsold cheap merch from years prior he failed to sell at conventions basically. There was just a problem with that thing: That lottery thing, which he also was only going to initiate when he reached a stretch goal of 150 dollar a month? It was illegal!

Patreon itself has in their user agreement a rule that forbids people from offering perks that essentially boil down to “earning” something via gambling, which this lottery by Dobson was.

(THOAD chiming in here to add that, in addition to all this, he fully admitted he would be excluding Patrons that he “knew were clearly trolls” from the lottery. Which made the already illegal lottery also fixed, so...yeah.)

The next thing coming to mind was his “discount” on previous books of his he offered online, if you donated at least 10 bucks per month to him. Or to translate it: You would get a bare minimum discount at pdf files of books such as Alex ze Pirate and Formera (you know, the permanently cancelled Dobson comics) if you paid up 50-75% of their original price on Patreon already. And considering the quality of his early works, he should have given you at least a book per month for free if you dared to donate him that much.

As for the stretch goals… lets go through them, shall we:

100$: A wallpaper per month. Something he did provide with eventually, but barely. And after less than five of those he stopped to make them overall

150$: Monthly Gift basket Lottery, which as I stated, was illegal and almost got him into serious trouble with his account. Also not an initial stretch goal he made up but instead came up with a few months into his accounts existence. Finally it got temporarily replaced by Dobson playing with the idea to use 150$ per month to open up a server and art site where people could upload stuff for free similar to deviantart, but under his administration. Promising a “safe space” for other artists. Which considering Dobson’s ego and inability to accept criticism or delegate responsibilities would have likely ended like this:

175$: Establishing a Minecraft server for him and his fans to play on. Meaning Dobson would have just wasted time he could spend on creating comics to endulge in his Minecraft obsession.

200$: Writing a Skyrim children book. Aside of the legal nightmare that this could have been (I doubt Valve would have been happy of someone else profiting of their property) I have to ask, who was even interested in Skyrim by 2015 anymore? Sure, Skyrim was a popular game and it had its qualities, but it was also a trend that had passed by that time. So in other words, there was not a market to cater towards here.

300$: A strip per week guaranteed.

… are you fucking kidding me? 75$ per strip essentially? Something people expect you to produce anyway if you want to be considered a “prolific” creator worth supporting online? Imagine if certain internet reviewers would do that, telling you that if they do not earn at least a certain amount of money, they will not produce anything, period, or less than usual. And Dobson had already proven that he can release more than just one comic within a few days, if he is motivated by enough spite.

600$: Starting a podcast with his friends to talk about nerd culture. In my opinion could only work under the assumption that people even like the idea of listening to Dobson and his opinions. Which considering how very little people like talking to him sounds doubtful. Also, considering how Dobson tends to be late to the party when it comes to nerd culture, likely tending to be out of date faster than he could upload. Finally... what friends?

700$: Returning the love, as he says it, by donating some of the money patreon users gave him to other content creators. This in my opinion is the most self defeating cause possible. On one hand sure, being generous and all that. But essentially Dobson admits here he would blow the money people give him to support HIS art on others, essentially defeating the purpose of HIS own account. He also does not clarify how much of that money he would donate, meaning there was a high chance that he would spend less than 10% of it on other creators, only creating the illusion of support while putting the actual earnings/donations into his own pocket.

2000$: A massive jump ahead. 2000$ per month would result in him getting better equipment (as in a new computer e.g.) and as such “potentially” make more comics. Mind you, only potentially.

This goal in my opinion is also the most fucked up one. Primarily for the following reasons:

Lets say Dobson would have achieved the goal and actually earned over 2000$ per month for at least a year. His annual earning would have been 24k, minus whatever he had to pay as taxes and payment for using the patreon service. And what would he do with this money? Get himself a better computer and equipment by paying a minor fraction of it once. Then he could use that computer for years to come while still having over 10k in his account, plus his monthly earnings. And he may still just produce 3-4 comics a month of a series that has as much depth to it than Peppa Pig if not less.

Sure, many patreon users have 2k+ as a stretch goal on their accounts to signify that if they could make that much monthly, they could have the necessary financial security to focus their time primarily on their content instead of a regular job. And if the content they create is actually well made, many people would support that or be okay with it.

But 2000 dollars to buy ONE computer and not account for how this money will add up over time? And that in light of such profits people may actually expect you to create more than you barely do already? That is either a case of narcissism, plain stupidity because you can't look further than 5 feet or just shows how Dobson did not understand at all the tool he had at his disposal.

Bottom line: Dobson, like many times before, fucked it up. He overestimated the potential support and resulting profits he could make, he expected that his name alone would be enough to assure gainings instead of creating content to justify support and he was unwilling to really give his supporters anything worthwhile back.

And while I am sure that there were also many other factors guaranteeing his failure, those at least to me, were his "common" mistakes most other people familiar even with the basics of internet popularity would ahve avoided.

#long post #patreon #syac #submission #very long post #andrew dobson #adobsonartworks #tom preston #adobsonart #soyouareandrewdobson #ripsinfest

[soyouareandrewdobson]

The good, the bad and... SYAC: The Master Review 3

Not gonna lie, writing out this and the next part of my Master Review was more of a chore than the one before or even after (yes, certain later parts are almost wrapped up)

The reason is, that as of now the only thing I can really talk about is the quality of the average SYAC strip pre-Dobbear and quite frankly, most of them are just rather dull in one way or another.

See, here is the thing with Andrew Dobson in general: When you ignore his opinions outside of comics and assume that his works are not meant to be on a level equal to certain professional work, his stuff is rather harmless and to a certain extend enjoyable.

For example, I think Formera is in terms of pacing all over the place and Alex is “at best” on the same level as Garfield in terms of depth. Which would be okay if you look for something shallow to just distract yourself from boredom.

In fact, I find Formera, despite its flaws and blatant rip off of “wacky” anime aesthetics, rather admirable in a way.

But then you remember, that Dobson is a professionally trained comic artist and animator who aspired to be published at least in the same way as “Cleopatra in Space” or “Hilda”, while also throwing shade at many professionally released works and those behind it, as if to imply he is better than them.

So with that in mind and his art at display, his work gets obviously judged on another level than certain other stuff online would likely be judged.

For example, as far as things go, this strip would be “passable” as a stupid joke that references Inspector Gadget, if just drawn by some hobby artist.

But as something from a “professional”? It’s rather underwhelming, even in something that is not meant to be the biggest selling point of him at the time it came out (serious sidenote: SYAC was essentially just a side project next to Alex ze Pirate and Dobson doing comics in collaboration with Brentalfloss. It was only after the collaboration ended and Dobson essentially put Formera and Alex into indefinite hiatus, that SYAC became his main comic)

It also doesn’t help (and sorry for repeating myself) that as far as his intentions go to make a comic about “silly problems” cartoonists face in creating their work, it still is filled with strips like these

Like, what is the point of a comic showing you as a kid getting scared by the intro tune to the Ghostbusters theme on a shitty computer game? The only thing I can think of when it comes to the “magical changing tv” is that your lol face looks stupid and slightly punchable (like your cheeks are falling in) and what the joke about the Minecraft comic is supposed to be I have no freaking idea. I know that those green penises tend to explode, but what does that have to do with making a comic?

Now to be fair, there are some comics about the subject of creating comics…

And Dobson even has done some “tutorials” and q&a to teach people about his comic creating process.

Tutorials whose advice I myself can not really judge, because frankly I am not an artist myself. I judge Dobson’s strips/comics primarily on execution of jokes, writing and intend. And frankly, as long as the final result looks good, I myself do not really care how it is achieved. The problem is, that the final results just tends to look kinda like this on average, so…

Yeah. And don’t get me even started on his “advice” to writing

 As such, I would take ANY art advice by Dobson with a huge grain of salt

 That said, I will give Dobson the following: This q&a strip here e.g. where he more or less talks about the nature of backgrounds in what seems to be a way more sincere tone than I see in his stuff on average?

I think it is kinda adorable and shows that he actually can draw more than just a self insert in front of a green void, if he just wants to.

Plus, I think there are actually some solid strips in SYAC. Not artistically, but I will admit that strips like this

This…

And these…

182, 118 and 119, 120

 And these...

Are actually kinda fitting and situations I can imagine people to deal with when creating a comic. To me they are relatable, and the later got a chuckle out of me.

 Even some strips of Dobson’s persona just at his booth or having his own “hilarious” moments in life are at least passable to some degree.

So shock of all shocks, not everything about SYAC, even at that time in Dobson’s life, was that bad. Like I give him credit, at least once upon a time he was able to make fun of himself…

Heck, I give that copy pasta comic at least that as obvious as the joke is, it is a bit clever. Not the smartest joke, but it could be worse. At least here Dobson kinda admits he will do copy paste. Unlike when he whines about “sexist crap”

 But then there are certain strips that at least are worth to raise an eyebrow. Like the anime related strips in the previous post or this bizarre confession in relation to one of his q&As.

Okay, I was thankfully saved from ever watching the atrocity known as Barney, so just let me check on google who the heck Baby Bop is to understand what… oh. And he drew artwork of Barney killing her. … that sounds kinda worrysome.

Then there is how Dobson e.g. decided to “address” his infamy regarding his opinion on Zelda-Ocarina of Time…

“hich involves a critic of his being portrayed as an ugly basement dweller. Or this comic, which got rather infamous once it got linked to Brianna Wu and Dobson would most likely want to forget nowadays, as it portrays him, the ally of the LGBT community as someone who actually is rather freaked out at men comfortable with a more feminine side/attire.

So now we have more or less covered some good and some bad ones. But what about the “ugly” ones? Yeah, that is going to be a quick skim through the archives with showing some strips that are going to stand out, because they give a first insight in how Dobson deals with criticism, perceives people (or rather stand ins for them) and their opinions, as well as how he tries and fails to catch up on certain trends.

#adobsonartworks #Andrew Dobson #syac #so you are a cartoonist #review #comic #webcomics #Tom Preston #adobsoncomic #adobsonartwork

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

So while watching video of r/NiceGuys and r/JustNeckbeardThings off YouTube, I ponder if you have the comic whereas DobBear ditches his fedora so he's not one of those things. Despite he is one of them due to the fact he is a feminist/LGBT ally and we're all idiots for not giving his praise for his stupid antics. Thanks

Here you go.

#syac #blue bear #fedora #andrew dobson #adobsonartworks #tom preston #adobsonart #ask #pissoffbowden

[soyouareandrewdobson]

What is the joke?

The title of this post is a common question some people have asked in regard of “So You’re a Cartoonist?” and certain other comics quite a bit over the years, seeing how some strips tend to be often times centered around a very confusing meme or inside jokes Dobson heard about. Then there are also those that were never meant to be funny to begin with, as they are focused on Dobson soapboxing about criticism or what he considers is an issue in nerd culture you should be outraged about, cause otherwise you are a nazi.

 And then there are “strips” like this one, published in early April 2014.

 And I just have to ask: Why does that even exist? Cause honestly, it is not even a joke. It is a butchered reference.

For those not aware what it references, here the short explanation:

In 1961 DC comic writer Gardner Fox, who among other things created Jay Gardner, the Golden Age DC comic Flash, wrote the comic “Flash of Two Worlds”. In this book, then current Silver Age Flash Barry Allen manages to vibrate his molecules at such a frequency, that he breaks through a dimensional barrier into a parallel earth called “Earth-2”. An alternate reality in which Jay Gardner, whose only a fictional comic book hero in Barry’s world, actually exists. But his days as the Flash have been over for years, having retired and married his girlfriend. However, with three of his old villains on the loose and Barry trying to find a way home, Jay decides to help The Flash, taking up the old costume again, leading to a team up between the heroes of two major time periods in comic history.

This comic marks a major point in the development of DC comics in general. Not only was it a meta celebration/tribute of the Golden Age Flash who had been long replaced in the public eye by Barry Allen, its success led to DC eventually revitalizing a lot of their major but at that point retired Golden Age characters, by making them all part of the Earth-2 reality.

The concept of a parallel-earth next to the main heroes reality introduced in this story would also become the very foundation for the concept of the DC multiverse, starting with the JLA story “Crisis on Earth-One” in 1963, over time eventually leading up to the most defining DC crossover that ever came and one of the most important comic events in the history of superhero comics: Crisis of Infinite Earths from 1985.

As of 2020, Flash of Two Worlds has been referenced in nerd culture a lot. Particularly the iconic cover has been referenced and parodied by many, including DC itself.

And yes, that cover is iconic. And why shouldn’t it be? Two Flashes, unaware of the other because of the “wall” (aka the dimensional barriere) trying to save someone, creating a certain suspense for the reader if the guy calling for help can be saved by either of the two speedsters before he is hit by the steel beam? Begging the question, how either of the two heroes may react when exposed to the other one? It is a genuinely suspenseful scene within just one pic, featuring the heroes of two generations of readers.

A pic that does however also lend itself for easy referential humor. All you need to do is just look for a franchise where something like alternate versions of main characters exist and replace them accordingly with the characters on the cover.

Here, have some fanart someone drew based on it of Sonic e.g.

And now imagine what others could do by doing something like that with characters from Rick and Morty, the Marvel multiverse, Star vs., Super Sentai, Paper and Regular Mario… different possibilities are given. You can either make it just a “straight” alternate take of the cover with other characters, or you can poke fun of it by changing something in the pic up significantly (e.g. I could imagine a Rick and Morty parody simply having Rick on the left being too drunk to save him, while on the right he is just mumbling something about Morty not having to worry cause he can just revive him in a clone body).

 But the “joke” also only works if a certain context is still given.

 People need to be aware of what the pic is referencing overall (the Flash of two Worlds cover) but also of the fact that such alternate versions of characters on the pic exist within the franchise that replaces the Flashes. The Sonic pic e.g. works, because it shows both classic and modern Sonic as the heroes. Something we had seen able to coexist within Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces.

In Dobson’s take however, the joke falls flat because Dobson uses something that up until ONE sketch prior has not even existed before: Black Pam.

For the record, this pic was released in late March 2014. You would now think that this picture existing was related to something like Dobson mocking critics of him for turning his self insert from a human into alternate universe Augustus Gummi all of sudden, by exaggerating changes in the designs of his other characters. But that can’t really be it, cause Dobson had turned himself into a furball of failure already for a year. He had also mocked the change in comics prior, as seen e.g. here.

So, why does “Affirmative Traction” as the one with Pink Dobson and Disco Pam is titled, exist? And by the way, I don’t like to call Black Pam racist, cause she could be way more stereotypical, but you really didn’t need to go Cola Light Disco blacksploitation with her design, Dobson.

But back to “Pam of Two Worlds”; As said, the joke with “two Pams” doesn’t really work, cause one of them is essentially a non entity and could also just be replaced with any other race or gender swapped version Dobson could have thought off. Furthermore, why is Dobbear calling for help exactly? Because a copy pasted tradepaperback of X-Force, likely drawn by Liefeld, is going to hit him on the head? I know it is just meant to be a joke and not something to think of too much, but the thing about jokes is, they too need to make a certain amount of sense and have a certain logic to them in order to work. This doesn’t really work because the “danger” is 150 pages of distillated 90s Marvel trash going to hit him on the noggin.

As long as it is not thrown from the Empire State Building, I doubt it can be any danger to Dobson. In fact, if he really wanted to draw something from which the Pams of two strips could save him, it should have been a spray water bottle. At least then the majority of people on the internet would get the joke.    

#adobsonartworks #adobsonartwork #andrew dobson #so you are a cartoonist #syac #crossover #dc comics #reference humor #comics

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Be careful, Andy...

As someone who is of french heritage, let me just say one thing: We know how to deal with our Kings when they get too full of themselves.

Not much else to say here. This “comic” is just Dobson liking to have a quick power fantasy shot before it goes back to being miserable as hell again. Though I will say one thing: It is nice to see Dobbear genuinely smile for once, even if he looks like he is going to order the murder of plebcomics via bikepump.

#andrew dobson #power fantasies #countdown to insanity #syac #tom preston

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

u c dobbears l8est exchange with randy??

All I’m seeing on his tumblr right now is a bunch of reblogs or someone who does TAZ art and his stupid KorraSami/Wuko comic where he brags about being one of the first Wuko shippers again(because he hated Mako and wanted to “punish” him for dating and cheating on both girls). Which exchange are you talking about? And who is Robbie?

#ask #anonymous