Comment On 1.5: The New Contractor

The thing I don't like about cartoons is when someone explains it. If I were you I'd just put the cartoon there without any explaining text.

I totally agree with onckelinx. If you are afraid that someone would not get the point then skip it!

Magenta? oh! And I believe magenta is a work under copyright, so forget about it dude... anyway, it's a funny one, the first one I find funny... but as the others said... no explanation please

Hey, I like how the cubicals are like a rat's maze, and the OC didn't even mention it!

Oh, and <generics>

not funny at all

I'd also prefer to see the comic without accompanying stories or explanation. If the author wants to add this, why not add it as a comment rather than on the main page?

Get rid of the crap cartoons and concentrate on publishing funny stories. The only WTF here is someone thinks these are good enough to publish

Is there a way to remove Mandatory Fun Day from the site's rss feed? That's usually how I read it..

I don't mean to sound rude, but is there a way to block 'Mandatory Fun Day' posts from the main feed? Or must I subscribe to each of the other feeds separately?

First: Tired cliche (evil boss). -10 points

Second: You could have at least parodied the Simpsons and made him look like Mr. Burns (and the assistant like Smithers), instead of going over the top and making him look like the love-child of Magneto and Shredder. -50 points.

Third: Nice touch on the rat maze lookalike cubicles from the high view. +10 points

Final Score: -50 Points. FAIL.

This one sucked. Try harder next time.

I know this argument has been made on every tube's comment board since the beginning of time, but it really does take a special kind of ignorant petulance to complain about free content. Great jumpin jeebus, people... give it a few weeks to see if it improves, and if it doesn't, STOP READING IT.

If you're going to steal a Kids in the Hall joke, at least get it right. It's "I crush you!", not "I squish you!". Christ.

These.


aren't.


funny.

The pro-comic people's argument of "if you don't like it, don't read it" is pretty bogus. The readership is not just an audient void, but the contributor of 99% of the articles on here. We are the content. We have every right to use our collective will to expel that which does not belong. If we do not do this, then sure we can "just scroll on past u moron" but eventually the signal-to-noise ratio will reach intolerably low levels.

Honestly, these comics are terrible. Maybe if we got to see *how* the contractor's soul was to be crushed and it was funny, this comic would be funny. As it stands, there's barely any humor to be scraped from the bottom of this barrel.

These comics are not funny. They are sh!t.

I've commented on all of them so far to say that I don't want them in the feed for DailyWTF, but now I'm unsubscribing.

Alex, you're probably thinking, "I'm not seeing a drop in my traffic" but I was subscribed using Google Reader which caches, so you won't notice the direct traffic. But know that you are definitely losing readership because of this poor decision to feature a crap comic.

Just. The. Comic.
No commentary

I feel bad that the guy making these comics is getting trashed left and right. I mean, today's was sort of funny, but even then it was not particularly original. When I look at a web comic I want something that I haven't seen before, or I get bored with it real fast. Maybe as a bit of constructive criticism to the author: try something original. You're drawings aren't bad, and you clearly have a sense of humor, just try something that hasn't been done already.

Where's the punchline?
Or if not a punchline, at least an attempt at humor.

Is there a joke in there somewhere?

Dilbert already trod this ground, only it was much funnier.

Scott Adams once wrote about how he came up with a strip about a fake opera singer, and called him Placebo Domingo. He was very proud of the pun. But when he opened up the newspaper, he saw the exact same pun in a different comic. His had not been sent to print, but if he did, the other comic's author would have assumed he stole it from him. It was a coincidence. He came up with a concept of his own, just to find that someone else had come up with the exact same thing.

However...

And yes, I completely came up with Mr. Magenta’s outfit on my own, and did not steal it from any pop-culture villain.

... a helmet with horns and a cloak? You've never, ever seen that before? I hope you're not serious and that I'm missing the humor in your statement. There again, I missed it in the comic too.

I've liked the comics so far. Whether they belong as primary content on this site is another discussion. I think most people just don't realize that certain comics take time to ramp up (not all, but most comics). Don't get discouraged by the bitter readership of this site.

Spot the "Kids in the hall" reference.

oh my god these comics are the worst comics

please stop


please

Sure... No similarity to the Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles whatsoever... :)

oh look

another "joke" about contract workers

followed by a paragraph that explains the "joke" because the comic can't stand on its own

hooray

Bad writing + Bad art = GENIUS

I think you should go with a Kingpin ripoff. The doublewide body, the spiffy dress suit, perfect for business lampooning. You could call him the Lynchpin, or the Kingpencil, or something of the sort.

It reminds me of Super-Deluxe on FARK. It is something so full of crap that it will eventually spawn its own collection of people that post just out of pure hatred for the presentation.

Given that the forum software no longer seems to be the total WTF it was before, I think the comic is intended to fill the gap. It is comforting to know that we do not simply laugh at other people's WTF on this site, but in fact the site is more than capable of generating its own WTF with great frequency.

Personally I find the artwork poor to the point of distraction. The artist is making a valiant attempt to draw human figures, but obviously does not have the chops to pull it off. Hopefully as time goes on they will find their footing - look at the first Penny Arcades compared to their latest stuff.

Right now it is just like watching two trains speeding towards each other on the same track with no way to stop. You just cannot pull your eyes away from something so tragic. On the upside its demise should provide a solid month of WTF articles.

The first XKCDs are the author trying to score a head from his girlfriend with pseudo-romantic emo doodles.

The 1.5 isn't so bad, but my comic is STILL better.

Summary of the comments so far:
Blah, blah, blah. Whine, whine, whine. MFD is not my favourite web comic! MFD is not xkcd/Dilbert/dinosaur comics! I don't like your drawing style! I don't like your writing style! I think you should die! I wish you would die!

Personally, I quite liked this one, I think the comic is improving. I absolutely loved the amount of detail of the first frame, with the maze, the miserable look of the employees and --especially-- the demon/minotaur tormenting some poor underling on the left!

Well, his technique may still require refinement but, as other posters said, many web comics today are quite unlike their original form.

While I hate to rag on a new comic as it is finding its place in the world, I wasn't happy to see Magneto combined with the finger-crushing character from Kids In The Hall.

.. Well, how did you think he'd crush a soul?

Rigorous enforcement of the same pointless, boring set of rules and guidelines over and over and over again? Pleeeze. As if that'd work.

How about we just disable comments on Mandatory Fun Day for a while? The people that get a small chuckle will just continue on with their lives, and the whiners will only complain loudly, to seem like a majority.

Also, I would like to see IP bans for those regions that seem to consistently not get sarcasm. But that's a whole other story.

Can you make an RSS feed for just MFD?

Keep up the comics. I did like you comment on the way the boss dressed - it was not an explanation of the comment, but a passing reference to it, similar to what xkcd does with the mouse-over.

Please, for the love of god, stop forcing this crap on the folks who are coming to TheDailyWTF to read STORIES. Either separate out a feed for the stories, or take this assinine comics out of the main feed.

They're not funny. They're enot relevant to the site content. They do not belong on TheDailyWTF, but if you insist on including htem, at least give your readers an opt out.

This is why the Comic Book Guy character from the simpsons is always saying Worst something Ever. It's an accurate portrayal of 95% of the comments here. You nerds will mystery-science-theatre anything you can if you think you know better.

This comic was highly enjoyable. There's even some nice detail in it, like the cubicles are set up like a maze and there's a minotaur in it carrying an ax. This was the best comic yet.

I suggest you start disabling comments, however. Most people have absolutely no experience with web comics outside of reading them, and you shouldn't be taking advice from self-proclaimed experts. No one here knows any better than you do, and it's your web comic, so you do with it what you want. The audience finds you.

Stop it PLEASE.

The comic sucks!

The 4th panel, the one with the punchline, is missing!

Is that rat in the maze holding an axe or a hammer? I can't tell.

Does it matter? - sure it does.

You really suck at this.

What did we ever do to you to deserve this?

Please stoppppppp!

You are an imbecile. Take this shit out of the RSS feed.

PLEASE STOP IDIOTIC CARTOONS!

Nice cubicles. One day it might be 25% as good as Dilbert. A shame it won't be different; just inferior.

I like how it is apparently not cool to make fun of this on a site that exists purely to poke fun and laugh at substandard work. Way to go!

I have indeed just been groaning at these and moving on, but this one made me groan loudly. I think it was the one-word-flipped punchline directly stolen from Kids in the Hall mixed with the setup panels that existed purely to justify this as a "computing joke".

The buffet analogy is amusing but not completely apt. The truth is that it is official DailyWTF content, and lowers the overall content quality of the site. If a buffet started including more and more rancid meat in their offerings, you would indeed stop showing up.

Comedy is a funny thing, and it does indeed take a while to work the kinks out and develop your own personal style and ability to know what is funny or will get a reaction.

This is the standup comedy equivelent of going on the tonight show, telling a bunch of cliche and hack jokes, and then apologizing about how you are new at it. The audience groans, a few people may laugh (who haven't heard the jokes a thousand times already) and the comedian bombs.

The fault lies not with comedian (or in this case, the webcomic author) but with the people who should have known better then to put them in the spotlight before it was their time.

Having absolutely no experience with comic strips before in my life I can still honestly say without any hesitation or hint of sarcasm that I guarantee I could write a better comic strip given 10 minutes.

It has nothing to do with simplicity of content, it's just that some people have a natural flair towards comedy (especially observational workplace humour)...s/he's the funny guy in the office (no, not the loudmouth who thinks he's funny, it's the quieter one who knows when to carefully place his witty aside).

To all the people saying that we should give it a chance to improve, do you honestly think it's going to improve to a level that is even remotely funny? This comic shows absolutely NO promise whatsoever. None. Squat. Zero.

Please quit while you have some incredibly small shred of dignity left because it's shrinking faster than my little-man-pirate in an ice cold pool.

This one was crap. Liked the others, though. Don't lose heart with all the negativism, your style will adapt. And don't lose the comic! It has potential. Or something.

I'll be back
Arnie

I thought the fun was supposed to be mandatory.

It's been disappointingly lacking so far.

Cliched, derivative, unimaginative, unoriginal, unfunny. The jokes have been done before many times, from Dilbert to Office Space to The IT Crowd to Everybody Loves Eric Raymond; the situations are predictable, and the characters' responses stereotypical.

I like the art, though; it's simple, plain line-art style, it's /your/ style, personal and individualistic, and I think it's fine to get started with and have no doubt it'll settle into a comfortable style as you get up to speed. But the scripts /aren't/ yours: they're everyone else's who's ever written on the subject, perhaps because you're trying to hard to look the part, to write what you think a comic about working in the computer biz /ought/ to be like. Relax, spend some time thinking about your characters as people, let them develop the stories how they will rather than treating them as playing-pieces to shove into positions for a set-piece joke, and hopefully the fun will follow of its own accord.

I'll still be reading these for at least a while yet, hoping you get into your stride as the strip progresses. Good luck :)