Wayward Nonsense

URL: waywardnonsense.smackjeeves.com
Creator/s: "waywardbreeze"
Run: 7/12-current
Schedule: Random

Website: It's generic.

Writing: In this autobiographical comic, the creator's avatar's an introvert who hates his job and plays a lot of video games. I noticed that the strips fall neatly into two categories: ones where the avatar interacts with people (1, 2, 3), and ones where the avatar's by himself (1, 2, 3). Strangely, every instance of human interaction's shown as being extremely negative and unsettling, while the avatar's generally in a state of blissful contentment while in solitude. Most of the unpleasant experiences are at his job, which has a cohesiveness of presenting the frustrations of working in retail, but his social aversion spills into his hobbies as well. He's always happy as a lamb when he plays games by himself, but the one time he's shown playing against someone online, he ends up feeling dejected. And in this scene, he fails at trying to fit in with the ravers. The most blatant example, though, is in this strip: Gaming with his dad as a 6-year-old's a bad memory, but playing the same game by himself as an adult's a blast.

So, what does this mean for the comic? I get the impression the creator's trying to present his character as an "Average Joe" that the audience can easily relate to, but he actually comes across more as a neurotic narcissist. And when he's not complaining about his job, nerdgasming over a video game, or fantasizing about Batman, he's either whining about things that annoy him (1, 2, 3) or whining about how lousy he feels (1, 2, 3). I just don't see anything likable or interesting about this character that would motivate a reader to wanna check back week after week to see what he's up to. And unlike a self-deprecating cartoonist such as Robert Crumb, who deliberately portrays himself as an obnoxious douchebag, the creator here depicts his self-insert as a childish victim who the audience is supposed to feel sorry for.

Based on the prevalence of the word "nonsense" and the lack of a plot, it seems like the creator's trying to do some sort of random humor strip, but the humor's notably absent. This strip's probably his most coherent attempt at making a joke, and it's just a vague excuse to have the character's head explode. More common, though, are strips like this one, which look like the creator drew something uninteresting and couldn't come up with any text to go with it. I guarantee that no one's ever gonna think the punchline "I'm gonna sleep harder than your mom's meatloaf," seen here, is anything but lazy and terrible. And those three strips are probably the best "jokes" in the whole comic. The rest of the time, you get stuff like this.

Art: I'd describe it as a "doodle comic," in that it somewhat emulates the ultra-casual nature of doodling. This style could possibly work if done by a competent artist, but the creator isn't one, and his strips give the impression that he was trying to win a bet that he could draw an entire comic in 30 seconds.

Overall: This is one of the worst webcomics I've reviewed, and I'm disappointed that the creator thinks it's reasonable to post something this low-quality. At best he's wasting his and his readers' time, and at worst he's portraying himself as being immature and dysfunctional. Hopefully, some time from now he'll look back on Wayward Nonsense and say to himself, "What was I thinking?"

1/5