Pile of Secrets

shittywebcomics:

Least I Could Do is baffling. It is one of the most successful comics on the internet, successful to the point that its author has been able to leverage it into a legitimate media enterprise. Despite the fact that every single panel is an anus-shredding firehose of diarrhea, for 10 years it has drawn the kind of readership and kickstarterbux for which Jeph Jacques would gladly amputate both hands. 

That in and of itself should not surprise anyone familiar with the internet - the internet loves shit, as long as it has just the right squishiness and odor consistent with their chosen fandom. Penny Arcade and CAD attract numberless legions of US GAMERS LOL AMIRITE, QC and Sinfest and Willis draw in the battle-weary warrior princesses of Social Justice, shellshocked by their long struggle against privilege, seeking succour at the teat of childish pandering. Userfriendly and XKCD thrive on the misguided love of forlorn CompSci and Engineering majors craving validation. Even Sonichu garnered at least one legitimate, documented fan from the vast pool of hedehog-positive autists. 

LICD has no autistic hedgehogs or moe trannies or VIDYA GAMS. It is merely the humble story of one man, Rayne Summers, who lives in an ordinary city with ordinary friends, who has PG-13 sex with lot of hot girls, and who is a huge dick (not a funny dick, or a lovable dick, just a dick). Usually there are light storylines, shot through with dated pop culture references. In other words, it’s a mediocre Friends knockoff from the early 2000s which couldn’t be arsed to write likable characters or funny dialog.

The premise would be fine - admirable, even, in its simplicity - if the comic were in fact funny. But the sum of all of LICD’s humor is Ryan Rayne banging a 10/10 superhot bitch, then telling her how unsatisfyingly rough her vaginal walls are. Then he throws the used condom in his best friend’s face, and the hot bitch and best friend smirk and look at him like >: but you can tell they’re not really angry because he’s just a lovable scamp! Then he goes to an anime convention or something, and tells the gook artist in front of all his fans how anime is shit, and the dumb Jap just sort of stutters as Rayne’s adoring niece blows a big ol’ raspberry right in his slanty face. Take that, other medium! Ryan Rayne is the big artist man!

It isn’t that sociopathic dick protagonists aren’t funny, mind. They’re fucking hilarious! But a critical element of that kind of comedy is the reaction of everyone the dick is dicking over. We can laugh at the dick because he’s not a real guy, and everyone knows none of this really happened (this is called the Holocaust Principle of comedy). The characters around him, however, should not be bending over and spreading their cheeks while rolling their eyes at what an outrageous card this ribald fellow is. How is that comedy? It’s just some huge asshole surrounded by spineless assholes - actually, not even that: a drawing of a whole bunch of literal butts is at least funny.

Occasionally, instead of banging a 12/10 bitch Rayne embarks on an EDGY polemic about a serious issue, at which the reader (you, dear friends!) will surely stop and say “woah! That’s exactly what I thought! Get out of my head Rayne!!” then maybe reblog it on your facebook like LOL I KNOW RIGHT? NONPROFIT NEWS WHEN, OBAMA?! And then perhaps feel an echo of the intense smugness Rayne exudes throughout the sample strip presented above.

I was going to say that these are devoid of even an attempt at a joke, but look at panel 2! Those 11/10 superhot bitches are doing the >: smirk face! Rayne must have been telling a joke. Haha, Lost, am I right? These comics are the equivalent of Sohmer cockslapping you across your bovine face with how Rayne, underneath his carefree rascal facade, is really a high intelligent and perceptive alpha male. Incidentally, I suppose you should know that Rayne is also the CEO of a highly successful firm despite regularly engaging in blatant sexual harassment (>: rayne you scamp!!) and belittling all his employees. (which, again, would be hilarious if said employees reacted to it at with anything but smirky tolerance).

The LICD fanbase, therefore, has even less credibility as intelligent human beings than the fanbase of Sinfest. They aren’t clinging to this floating log of shit because it’s all that keeps their heads above the storm-tossed waters of the patriarchy. They can’t possibly be laughing at the jokes, because there are none worth repeating. Because of Sohmer’s pathetically cowardly decision to make a comic all about RAUNCHY SEX and then refuse to draw anything more explicit than the occasional bum, they can’t even claim to be reading it for titillation. Thousands of people follow LICD for absolutely fuckall beyond the privilege of watching Ryan Sohmer masturbate clumsily to a caricature of himself.

To his credit, Sohmer possesses at the least some base mercantile cunning. He parlayed LICD’s inexplicable success into capital, and built for himself Blind Ferret Entertainment, through which he was able to establish strong relationships with other highly esteemed webcomic brands, such as Ctrl Alt Del and VGcats. We have none less than Ryan himself to thank for the beloved CAD animated series!

All of this might perhaps be forgivable, but Sohmer’s hubris is such that he actually went so far as to register the domain www.webcomic.com for LICD. Yes, he made his onanistic abortion the face of the entire industry, just to pull in a few more precious ad$. If you want a picture of the future of webcomics, you need only imagine Rayne Summer’s asshole shitting on the whole medium - forever.