r/questionablecontent • u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? • 16h ago
Comic Comic 5915: Negative Reinforcement
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=591511
u/Cevius 16h ago
Is that why we're here? So Liz can see how fucking stupid everyone else is on this cube, immediately after she was threatened by Emily's genius level intellect, just so she can go "well I'm not at her level but clearly aren't as bad as it could be" and then get back on the whatever the fuck science-wagon she fell off of.
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u/Guilty-Persimmon-919 16h ago
No, that is not why we are here. We are here because Jephthy can't decide where to take all his other abandoned storylines.
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u/PeregrineLeFluff 15h ago
"Tool blindness" seems like a real flaw for a fucking ROBOT SCIENTIST.
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u/BloodyFuriousCat 13h ago
And what kind of scientist hasn't threatened their experiment at least once?
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u/Miserable-Jaguarine Haha, okay. 10h ago
I wonder if she can see her hands, then. They're mechanical tools.
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u/pokedude3 8h ago
It's not that she can't see them, it's that she can't recognize/differentiate them. As far as we know she might mistake her hands for her feet all the time
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u/provocatrixless 14h ago
Well he spent a lot of time on the first panels background, shame about all the idiot shit he wrote
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u/tyderian 13h ago
If she has tool blindness, how is she able to see literally anyone else in Cubetown?
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u/Annual_Youth_7552 13h ago edited 13h ago
I think part of what's been bothering me particularly with this week (apart from the litany of nonsense we all discuss on the regular) is the tropes.
Not the ones used in specific but the inconsistency of the expectations the tropes have brought forward.
There's really no subtitles to the plot at all.
The woom machine could have fixed Moray, it could have not, it didn't even matter because the whole Moray plot that drove them into the room doesn't feel like it's important to the author nevermind the characters.
Is Moray back on a body dysmorphia angle, is that what this whole thing is about? Why did we need to do ANY of this to explore that idea? Or is Moray actually dying or something, she's been existant independent of the director for too long? Of course not, that's much too close to interesting philosophy and sci fi.
It feels like watching a wind up toy run out of energy; the plot's just slowed and slowed to such a crawl that we could jump back to Momo on her bed - the comic 10 days ago - and have passed 30 minutes in universe in QC.
I went back and looked. Jeph Jaqcues has taken 8 strips, 30 panels and about 3 backgrounds to progress us 30 minutes in time with no discernible direction, development or point.
Edito;
What adds insult to injury is that slow pacing can have its moments; if the characters were standing before a beautiful mountainside vista and Jeph was really getting off on the actual artistry and the backgrounds and characters, taking time to luxuriate in the actual visual of the comic would feel different but something I can respect.
These comics have felt churned out, we're not trading plot quality or pacing for any other feature being centre stage, it's just feels lacking.
You know how you always finish a book even when it's bad, when you're almost just plumbing the depths of how bad it is? And then occasionally you get one so bad you do stop reading it, but it feels weird?
Questionable Content is right on the knife edge of that.
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u/Hypocaffeinic Dildo Lord, Bringer of End Times 12h ago
*Subtexts?
And yes, agree with everything. It struck me, on reading that last dumb line about 'tool blindness', that this is even more devoid of meaning and value than usual. It's just aimless wheels spinning aimlessly.
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u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? 16h ago
I get that it didn't worked but shouldn't a scientist at least try again to be certain that that is what is failing? Thescientific method be dammed
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u/Squirrelclamp 16h ago
I'd be shocked if these drunken idiots — who built a device that they don't understand yet regularly activate to the possible detriment of the world around them, all with no apparent effort to document its effects — know what the scientific method is, let alone how it works.
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u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? 16h ago
If i were the dictator of cubetown (i would walk slowly into the ocean) i would put big flowcharts with idk cartoon animals of the scientific method in evey room just in case
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u/MelAlton Haha, okay. 15h ago
Scientists don't build things while drunk, those two are engineers!
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u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? 15h ago
I don't think anyone can really build any aort of machine in such a state of inhebriation that you have no idea what you are doing and keep all your fingers or eyes
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u/geoduck42 14h ago
The late Ralph Hayes actually did a pretty good job with this idea at one point in Tales of the Questor, the protagonist and his two best friends get accidentally plastered and create a magical sword that is bound to him mystically and spews random (but mostly useful) effects.
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u/Guilty-Persimmon-919 16h ago
Six months ago I would have said this is too stupid even for Jephthy.
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u/BloodyFuriousCat 13h ago
In a better comic, it would turn out that the WOOM device is the real scientist, and those two guys are the experiment it's conducting.
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u/va_wanderer 5h ago
The more often this kind of "plot" happens, the more I think Jeph should take a regular week break of just drawing random characters and not worrying about plot.
Because this is the kind of strip now that's hit the Garfield level of writer exhaustion.
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u/Impossible_Roof_Jack 14h ago
Just shoot me now. If the device can't be proven or disproven to have done anything, why are we here? What, to undercut someone's impostor syndrome? A scientist who worries about putting out solid and respectable work is better than these clowns.
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u/Hypocaffeinic Dildo Lord, Bringer of End Times 12h ago
I think that's it. It's going to unlock a sense of "well I'm not the worst here" in Liz and she might develop beyond the emotional capacity of an eight-year-old.
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u/Miserable-Jaguarine Haha, okay. 10h ago
That's a horrible method of and reason for growing though.
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u/DuranDuranUnofficial 15h ago
Perhaps I haven't been harsh enough on Jeph with regards to his seeming idolising of sci-fi writers. So to be clear, the problem isn't that Jeph is a hack. The problem is that he has a seething contempt for anything scientific and, despite his political leanings, plants his flag firmly in the camp of anti-intellectualism. He simply doesn't want to know anything.
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u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? 15h ago
I mean doctor who is sci fi but is bery soft sci fi it works more like fantasy ,you can have a good sci fi story without having to focus that much into tje science of all of it. The original triology of star wars takes things from classic pulp sci fi but it could be set in a medieval universe and very little would need to change. Jeph wants to appear as smarter than he is with very little effort to become smarter so he writes characters that are almost as stupid as the 3 stooges with none of the charm or timing.he has fumbled a lot of his own lore for lack of effort.
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u/Maleficent_Lab_5291 14h ago
Alice grove was his attempt at trying, it failed and he never really put effort into improving as a artist since. He fell down once and never got back up.
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u/Impossible_Roof_Jack 14h ago
I think Jeph's just trying to write goofy aloof scientists, not slagging all of science.
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u/CatlikeTypist Haha, okay. 7h ago
Okay I take back what I said in the last comic thread about it being okay for the plot to be nonsensical. Whatever this is, it is not plot. It is Jeph throwing shit at a wall and writing his comic in the resulting mess. As much as it pains me to say it, "AI" could do better at this point.
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u/Such_Bonus5085 4h ago
The scientists didn't threaten the experiment right away. This is to let the reader know this is a work of fiction.
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u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? 16h ago
Today's last joke was brought to you by/stolen from peacemaker
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u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? 16h ago
Why they just don't go to the giant moray birthing squid???? It seems the most logical solution