Behind the Panel of Pixels
D-Generation Sex by B.V
Part One: Webcomics and Cultural Representation, or how comics can reflect the very worst in stereotypes
This post has had a somewhat tulmultuous and delayed life, in part due to real life and real work catching up to me. A bigger part involves my catastrophic laziness which I will flagellate myself about for the rest of time. However the biggest reason, which took me completely by surprise when I initially shortlisted the work for BtPoP, is simply that is such a monumentally self-aggrandisingly stupid, tasteless, shamelessly misogynistic comic that it floored me when I got down to closely reading it, which until I sat down to start the post again, was the last time I would do so. I felt that wasting time and energy on such an intellectual black hole would be an ultimately futile endeavour, which is why it took me so long to attempt a whimsical and informative writing fingerprint. Hopefully this extended delay will result in a far more entertaining post than the one I would have written otherwise.
Okay, rant over, back to our regularly scheduled (if somewhat pre-empted) blog post.
Webcomics, being a medium for the people, often (but not always, nor is it entirely a bad thing) has the inevitable consequence that the locations, popular culture and even writing style will be firmly rooted in a particular timeframe. This was briefly touched upon in the Sally Protest, where many of the potential pitfalls and obstacles of such a writing method were spotted as part of the Gontermethod (still in rehab over those puns, sorry). Now this had a purpose; it was a comic designed to complain about changes to another comic's status quo and was in fact complained about to such a degree that the storyline was quickly changed to bring the eponymous princess back to life. With a lot of comics that like to consider themselves as either newspaper comics or a kind of embellished madcap take on reality, overuse of popular culture can dilute any potential point to a comic, and in very few places is this more notable than in dreg-of-reality comic D-Generation Sex.
But before we break it down, a little bit of context is in order to get the full experience. The original comic run of about five comic book-style was made between 1998 and 2000, and for the work on culture is by far the most relevant thing to discuss, particularly its treatment of Professional Wrestling which was, at that point at least, one of the biggest nuggets of youth culture in the world. In 1998, professional wrestling achieved it's highest viewing figures ever between the two prime-time Monday night shows that were on, that reached an enthralled audience of well over ten million viewers each week. The tale of the viewing numbers and revenue for the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling says a lot about the willingness for the public to spend large amounts of money on merchandise and flocking to television sets and pay-per-view providers to watch big men beating each other up for six hours a week. Actually that's deeply unfair on the medium, as at it's best the matches become like a high impact ballet, featuring carefully choreographed and slickly executed manoeuvres that can tell rather compelling stories, which if combined with emotionally charged stories that don't insult the audience and exciting characters who the audience want to back can lead to something that resembles a high impact theatrical production for the masses. Indeed, the storylines outside of the four corners became the principle focus and arguably the biggest reason for casual fans to watch, which is why storylines and odd vignettes began to dominate the broadcast time, to the detriment of the actual entertainment that is on the marquee. In fact, just a year after the launch of D-Generation Sex, one of the wrestling companies mentioned above would rapidly shrink in value, and two years after that the entire wrestling industry suffered a massive downturn as the result of there being only one wrestling company big enough to be shown internationally.
But that's the future, for now we must talk about one of the biggest success stories the WWF had, which was a series of storyline conflicts with an overarching theme of chaos facing order. This is a trend that has been in fiction since the first story was ever conceived but this particular iteration began as the WWF changed from being the family friendly wrestling organisation featuring wrestling clowns, wrestling tax men, wrestling bailiffs and a Samoan sumo wrestler as it's world champion to being a far more edgy, envelope pushing, sexually charged program. The conflict was simple; the symbol of pure wrestling talent, ability and wholesomeness in Canadian Bret Hart and his Hart Foundation taking on real life wrestling bad boy, anarchist and backstage politician Shawn Michaels and D-Generation X.
Sound Familiar? That's because of how excellent the wrestling group was, appearing in bizarre, entertaining and sexually charged (yes, in a very homoerotic sense) skits where they appeared naked or talked about sausages far more often than is comfortable, and told people (via the lost art of the crotch chop) to 'Suck it!”They became wildly popular in the WWF's home of the United States, leading to the rather interesting dynamic of two competing groups whose entire dynamic reversed depending on where they were appearing, with D-X being hated in Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom, and the Hart Foundation being hated in America but loved in the rest of the world.
At this point, too much has probably already been said about the original Degeneration X as far as this is concerned, but rest assured, D-X vs the Hart Foundation and the later Steve Austin Vs Vince McMahon feuds (where the dynamic was blue collar renegade vs billionaire wrestling tycoon, a simple story that went on to generate the highest viewing figures and overall revenue for any storyline ever) were big business and captured the hearts and minds of a very teenage/early adult fan base. However, this wasn't without the consequence of patterning wrestling as a menace to the young, and wrestling fans as illiterate, drug taking racist, sexist morons unable to comprehend consequence, bathing or any of the other norms of society; a stereotype perpetuated by storylines on television catered to them, and webcomics such as D-Generation Sex, which prove that such pissants actually exist.
Entering the website itself is an interesting experience, warning you that you should only read it if you are a legal adult where you live: a sign that the 'humour' will be presumably aimed at thirteen year old kids. This is far from the most interesting warning on the front page however; that would be in the latest news post “Start from the latest comic...':
The better artwork and more fiendish plots are in the newer strips,
so why not start there and work your way backwards? At some point,
you'll hit the original comics I drew back in 1998 - multiple page books
that tell the origin stories of my favorite degenerates!
This 'better artwork' and these 'more fiendish plots' are apparently only really enjoyed backwards, like the French art film Irreversible, which clearly marks this as a work of potential genius, especially if he's been working on this comic for over eleven years! Sadly, this review will not be using the author's Memento method and will simply take the books in a linear fashion, starting from the first comics from 1998...
Truly a Shakesperean opening
...Except for the first one, which apparently through the medium of time travel exists in two different time frames at once; in 1969 and 2009. That brief messing up of the space-time continuum aside, the 'Debut' [sic] comic serves as a framing comic, linking the early stories with the 'more fiendish plots' through the delightful medium of horse fucking.
Moving as swiftly on as humanly possible, we get into the opening story, 'D-Generation SeX', an epic tale of “three college students who became unlikely heroes' which, while a stock plot, could possibly work as well as the hundreds of other times it had been used, a hope smashed one panel later when they introduce the characters:
Bri (AKA Stone Kato Luv): A bearded 'intelligent loner who despised mankind' which makes him the author insert seen in the 'Debut' [sic].
Mike (AKA Tha Dumm Ass): A long haired dredge of humanity whose 'addictive personality' is of a smoking, masturbating rapist.
Wade (AKA Tha Road Kill): He has weird hair and stinks, that's the entirety of his personality.
Part of the reason comics are appealing is through characters, in all the myriad ways that is possible. So to make an interesting character every single element, from the name, to the design, the little subtleties they have, their back story and so on, needs to be designed with a united purpose. Consider, if you would, the bright colours, chiselled physique and single-minded desire for justice that Superman has, or the colour scheme and somewhat complex design of Spiderman, symbolising his troubled psyche. In any form of comics, this continues, where an outfit can at-a-glance show a character's symbolically open character traits, from Piro's (Megatokyo) thick clothes and long hair to symbolically shield himself from the world to the elaborate .
A common trend of my readings of webcomics is not the text or actions, but the tiny little details that create a world and a web of silent messages, making the comic far greater than the simple combination of words and pictures on a page. Slice of life and this interesting trend of embellished life comics (which Megatokyo and Scott Pilgrim epitomise) really suit this implied narratives : narratives that don't tell their stories through just words and/or pictures, but through the interesting symbiosis of words and text intersecting to create a world on a page as vibrant as in any other media. The problem with this is that one has to be good at both writing and art in order to succeed at this, which it becomes clear, after the invasion of the Ku Klux Klan looking aliens is bested by a trio so wasted and unlikable, it's as if this is nWo : The Early Years. Anyways, yes, the opening story is that Y2K (remember when people genuinely thought that the clocks wouldn't wrap around properly and it would kill all mankind? Oh to be young!) left the world in ruin, with riots between ravers over food, innocent ATMs getting kicked and worst of all, the continued existence of Tha Dumm Ass. Apparently the three get incarcerated in the most useless and ironic prisons possible, as Word Salad Luv breaks out of a mental hospital and Tha Accurate Name escapes rehab. For some reason, a deadly fleet of badly drawn sombreros decide to invade earth for undisclosed reasons. All this comes to a head as “Pandemonium breaks out!” and the “unlikely heroes” beat up some aliens and for some reason get beamed up to an alien ship only to be beamed down to Washington DC, which apparently the Parthenon and a random tower are the only buildings resident. The alien leader makes the rather unfortunate mistake of asking who they are, and then we are rewarded for his idiocy with a page and a half of plagarism, as Tha Road Kill does his best Billy Gunn impression (by being totally and utterly gay with his “Blow J.O.B Squad” shirt) and then Stone Author Insert puts on his best Road Dogg voice as he introduces himself and his idiot friends thusly “Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls children of all ages! Stone Kato Luv proudly brings to you... the other two thirds of D-Generation SeX!” And of course, instead of suck it, their witty and tasteful chant, one I'm sure they wanted to put on t-shirts: “...we got two words for you! Fuck You!”
Truer words have seldom been spoken worse. And sure enough, their threat of youfucking impresses the general and he makes the pre-requisite offer of letting them join him so they can youfuck in his name. Their response, like most of their responses to anything in this, is to superkick his head off, leading to a timely South Park joke for no reason, since it was barely contemporary in 1998. With the general soundly defeated, the president gives them one wish each like he's the fucking genie, which leads to the status quo being protected for the next election year-filled episode of D-Generation SeX.
To Be Continued. Sorry about the massive delay on this. Clearly I can't follow my own advice on bevity
Lord SuperC
Behind the Panel of Pixels : Webcomic Fucktardary and How to Avoid it
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