Somehow I ended up wandering the Inhuman webcomic website and ran across this article he write. How Inhuman is not a furry webcomic and I read that... it's a slog. And suddenly, it went from piles of what felt like useless weasel-words, to a pair of paragraphs, back to weasel words again bouncing around in a box. That whole rant... all three or four screens of it... really boils down to this, and it's a very valid point:
It describes his core definiton he's basing his entire argument/rant around, and taken in that context, no, Inhuman is not a 'furry' webcomic. It's much more in the vein of Farscape or Star Trek or even Star Wars than Jack, or Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. But his definition of 'furry' likely doesn't match the definitions of many of the people reading the comic, I'd imagine. And I fear that struggle to fight the label the general readership wants to apply to him for ease of pulling in other readers for him may end up backfiring in the long term, despite the really lovely art style and decently engrossing story so far.
Furry comics are essentially completely human characters dressed up in animal clothes. It does not matter if you were to strip them of their fur. Jack could still be the grim reaper, Mab could still be a fairy magician, Vinci and Arty would still be a gay couple struggling with their problems. The fur is unimportant to them.
It describes his core definiton he's basing his entire argument/rant around, and taken in that context, no, Inhuman is not a 'furry' webcomic. It's much more in the vein of Farscape or Star Trek or even Star Wars than Jack, or Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. But his definition of 'furry' likely doesn't match the definitions of many of the people reading the comic, I'd imagine. And I fear that struggle to fight the label the general readership wants to apply to him for ease of pulling in other readers for him may end up backfiring in the long term, despite the really lovely art style and decently engrossing story so far.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-24 01:14 pm (UTC)the essay was more for the average websurfer who takes a look at anything with fur and turns up their nose, saying it's not for them. that's the crowd that's much harder to talk to and needs the point hammered home repeatedly. though, keeping the fanatical 'fursecution' furries from reading the comic was a nice side effect of the rant.
i'm glad you really enjoy the art and the story. the comic's been going since 2003 and really has only gained readers, though, so i'm not too worried about the rant backfiring :>
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-24 10:39 pm (UTC)Seocnd, yes, I really do love the art style. It's... invitingly fuzzy somehow without coming across as just overly noisy. And the unique character designs are wonderful as well.
Didn't know the comic had been up since 2003, that's good to know, and I'm glad you're doing well with it. And you're right, it does nicely counter my concern about the essay. The page might do with a minor refresh if you think the original form went a bit awry, which was the impression I got as well (a gem, really, I honestly am impressed by that paragraph I highlighted for summarizing things so succinctly; it's a valid point across a lot of webcomics). If nothing else, the internal link to comic #7 is broken I just noticed. =^.^=
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-24 10:43 pm (UTC)i do mean to update that essay...and about ten thousand other things, especially the alien indexs. yeegh.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-24 10:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-24 11:06 pm (UTC)ooooh i see. it's leading to the old .html link, and i switched to php since then. all fixed. danke! also the owl/grphon in your avatar is just obscenely cute.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-25 12:56 am (UTC)