🎨 Artcow Iconoclast / Jonathan Mack Sweet - The Chris-Chan of Arkansas

[MrsFrizzle]

I'm surprised he doesn't think Megan was just some UPPER-CLASS TROLLOP who was leading Chris on, the filthy succubus.

Remember that Sweetiepie's "upper-class trollop" lived in a 900 square foot home currently valued at $60,000. We are not talking the country-club set here. If Megan lived upscale of a double-wide, she'd be an aristocrat by Sweetums's standards.

 

[24isthehighestnumber]

Can we talk about how bad this guy is at drawing for a second? Holy shit, that uneven, clumsy line quality is high school grade at best. And how old is this dude, like 45?

 

[Le Bateleur]

Can we talk about how bad this guy is at drawing for a second? Holy shit, that uneven, clumsy line quality is high school grade at best. And how old is this dude, like 45?

He's 39.

And yes, he is bad at art. He doesn't like it being pointed out to him.

His comics are derivative and racist, and even if they weren't they will never find a wide audience because he can't lay out a page so that it logically draws the reader's eye through it. There's 20 or so issues of Belch Dimension on Sweet's dA, if you're really feeling masochistic.

 

[Adamska]

Can we talk about how bad this guy is at drawing for a second? Holy shit, that uneven, clumsy line quality is high school grade at best. And how old is this dude, like 45?

Honestly, I can tolerate his art for the most part, barring his stupid decision to use stickmen in busy panels. Oh and Po' Bunny Taxes. That backdrop racism is forever burned into my skull. It's his text that gets me. I physically can't read his panels because of it; my eyes slide right off of it because it feels legit scrunched and partially illegible because of all the other lines.

 

[Shadow Fox]

If you're drawing a gag comic that's portraying broad caricatures of reality, you probably don't really need an exhaustive working knowledge of the properties of light and color or how all the human muscle groups interact with each other, the way you would if you were, say, a fine artist or an animator. Sweets' work is still unpolished, and needs improvement, but truthfully I don't think that's his biggest failing. What really kills me about his comics (aside from the blatant racism and political soapboxing) is his awful page layouts and design decisions. He insists on using stickmen in detailed, busy settings, even though the stickmen don't work in this type of comic because they get lost in amidst the rest of the linework. His text boxes vary wildly in shading - sometimes they're dark and easy to distinguish, sometimes they're just faint, smudgy pencil - and are almost always illegible because the text is crammed into them. It's difficult to make any sense out of the pages the way they're laid out. The comic is just...unwelcoming, is the best word I can use. Everything's a garish mass of shapes and colors with blocks of text scattered haphazardly throughout. It doesn't entice the reader with interesting layouts or distinctive character design or an interesting setting. It's just unpleasant to look at.

All that said, I waded through the most recent issue of his comic posted on his dA and found a couple of gems.

Spoiler: NOT RACIST YOU GUYS

Spoiler: I would not be surprised if he wrote this without a hint of self-awareness

Why "sip!" needed an exclamation point, I have no idea. Maybe Sweets will tell us in his wiki.

 

[24isthehighestnumber]

^ "imagine! A grown man living in the past!"

I can't. I just can't.

 

[John Titor]

Can we talk about how bad this guy is at drawing for a second? Holy shit, that uneven, clumsy line quality is high school grade at best. And how old is this dude, like 45?

Let me recap my experience with me and his excuses he uses on his art. His opinions are in bold, mine are in red.

- If you don't like his art, you are a dirty liberal trying to bring him down. Let's ignore the fact that politics has nothing to do with anything.
- If you can't follow his comic, you're not using your brain.
- Bright and garish color is "suppose to be colorful".
- Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy) doesn't draw on model.
- Look at my masterful juxtaposition of drawing and photography!
- I never had formal training. (The Internet has free resources)
- My eyesight is bad! (Apparently not bad enough to read these forums)
- It's symbolic! (topkek)
- It has charm! (Where have we heard this before?)

Honestly, I can tolerate his art for the most part, barring his stupid decision to use stickmen in busy panels. Oh and Po' Bunny Taxes. That backdrop racism is forever burned into my skull. It's his text that gets me. I physically can't read his panels because of it; my eyes slide right off of it because it feels legit scrunched and partially illegible because of all the other lines.

He seriosuly uses MSPaint to color but won't bother using the text tool.

 

[Meowthkip]

Let me recap my experience with me and his excuses he uses on his art. His opinions are in bold, mine are in red.

- If you don't like his art, you are a dirty liberal trying to bring him down. Let's ignore the fact that politics has nothing to do with anything.
- If you can't follow his comic, you're not using your brain.
- Bright and garish color is "suppose to be colorful".
- Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy) doesn't draw on model.
- Look at my masterful juxtaposition of drawing and photography!
- I never had formal training. (The Internet has free resources)
- My eyesight is bad! (Apparently not bad enough to read these forums)
- It's symbolic! (topkek)
- It has charm! (Where have we heard this before?)



He seriosuly uses MSPaint to color but won't bother using the text tool.

Jesus Chris, Sweets, John K. actually studied art and has a blog where he actually explains draftsmanship and use of color. He actually knows what he's doing because he knows the rules and can bend them. You don't know the rules because you won't even make the effort to learn them, and you're too proud to admit that you have any rules to learn. Also, you are lazy. MS Paint? Seriously? SAI is free, motherfucker. Maybe go to Mr. Kricfalusi's blog and learn you some color theory.

Your art could be less ugly if you actually gave a fuck.

 

[The I Scream Man]

Jesus Chris, Sweets, John K. actually studied art and has a blog where he actually explains draftsmanship and use of color. He actually knows what he's doing because he knows the rules and can bend them. You don't know the rules because you won't even make the effort to learn them, and you're too proud to admit that you have any rules to learn. Also, you are lazy. MS Paint? Seriously? SAI is free, motherfucker. Maybe go to Mr. Kricfalusi's blog and learn you some color theory.

Your art could be less ugly if you actually gave a fuck.

Art, like music and other forms of creative expression, is at its core an expression of the soul. I am therefore completely unsurprised that his is so bland and flavorless, like old Now'N'Laters.

 

[Meowthkip]

Art, like music and other forms of creative expression, is at its core an expression of the soul. I am therefore completely unsurprised that his is so bland and flavorless, like old Now'N'Laters.

Not sure if I would characterize it as "bland." At least blandness would be inoffensive.

Sweets' art is ugly and garish, incomprehensible to most but himself and an assault on the eyeballs. It's sloppy and broken to its core, but presented as though it is complete and without crippling flaws. If you don't appreciate it, then you're just a liberal or an elitist or a snob.

It perfectly reflects Sweetums.

 

[John Titor]

Jesus Chris, Sweets, John K. actually studied art and has a blog where he actually explains draftsmanship and use of color. He actually knows what he's doing because he knows the rules and can bend them. You don't know the rules because you won't even make the effort to learn them, and you're too proud to admit that you have any rules to learn. Also, you are lazy. MS Paint? Seriously? SAI is free, motherfucker. Maybe go to Mr. Kricfalusi's blog and learn you some color theory.

Your art could be less ugly if you actually gave a fuck.

SAI is not free, unless you meant GIMP. Other than that, he keeps insisting on taking Kricfalusi out of context. Kricfalusi doesn't use model sheets because he thinks each frame should be unique but the "squash and plump" rule still applies so it doesn't look choppy. He would also have some very choice words about Icon's art philosophy.

 

[Meowthkip]

SAI is not free, unless you meant GIMP. Other than that, he keeps insisting on taking Kricfalusi out of context. Kricfalusi doesn't use model sheets because he thinks each frame should be unique but the "squash and plump" rule still applies so it doesn't look choppy. He would also have some very choice words about Icon's art philosophy.

My bad about Sai. I admit I don't use it because I still have all my Adobe programs from college, so I haven't had the need for a free art program.

But yes, agreed.

 

[Le Bateleur]

I have a strong suspicion that Sweet Bro was never cool

>Vanilla Ice t-shirt
>1999

Also this made me laugh - Sweet's mother likes his avatar where he's drawn himself with his waifu

 

[Adamska]

Huh, I'm shocked he didn't say half past 1997 was his party year.

 

[Le Bateleur]

I'm almost certain that this is a very early picture of Sweet. (Source)

Spoiler

Are those the same glasses he has now?

 

[The I Scream Man]

I'm almost certain that this is a very early picture of Sweet. (Source)

Spoiler

View attachment 12251

Are those the same glasses he has now?

No he's got different ones and I can confirm the authenticity of the photo in question, yer Honor.

 

[Le Bateleur]

I still can't shake the feeling that Sweet may have mild autism - or at least something that makes it hard for him to pick up on nonverbal cues.

Well, Citi, with my first job--a college newsroom--I think it all came down to a personality conflict. I was once told my fellow staffers complained that I tended to butt into private conversations, and that bothered them. And then there was this one doll who had this freaky scar across her throat, and apparantly I unnerved her by looking at it. She wasn't a bad looker, but, man, that scar--it was like someone took a box cutter to the Mona Lisa, y'know? I couldn't help but look. I guess it's my artist's eye, looking for unusual quirks to sketch. Long story short, there was a dispute over one of my pieces, which culminated in my firing...but I think it all came down to someone thinking I got too big too fast and feeling threatened and jealous. so they decided to get rid of me.

(Source, backup)

Yes, basically it started with a dispute over a plagiarism charge ... but I really think it was more than that. You see, I was extremely socially awkward in those days. I believe my personal habits may have unnerved some folks, but they never actually said anything to me about it to my face. For example, a few months after my termination I was told by a friend I'd worked with that one of the staffers-- the girlfriend of the guy who filed the phony charge, in fact-- was bothered by me always staring at this terrible scar across her throat. She was a pretty girl--it was like someone had taken a butcher knife to the Mona Lisa, and her disfigurement held an odd fascination for me. (The young lady later became the model for Kit's friend Aren Loy.) I firmly suspect the editors wanted me to step down, but didn't have the cojones to ask me directly, so they chose a cheap, ugly, dishonest way. By forcing me off the school paper, my reputation was damaged, my credibility ruined and my self-esteem was shattered. I suppose those silly schemes to trick my way back on staff and vowing a vendetta against those responsible didn't help my case, as my records were red-flagged and I was forced to leave school entirely the following year.

(Source, backup)

Notice that, in his lucid moments, Sweet knows the truth. He wasn't barred from his old college by some shadowy conspiracy, he got himself banned through his own antics.

 

[Holdek]

https://archive.today/WJGnG

Another wiki page about one of his characters, another confirmation of Sweet Bro's inability to let go of the past. The same character appears in two separate stories about a man wrongly forced out of his job by a conspiracy.





-------

Someone ought to point it out to him that his obsessions are having a negative effect on his fiction output. No one wants to hear the same three stories over and over again with changed details.

Yeah. For me, this was actually one of the Things You Can Learn From The Lolcows. Long ago, I used to stick random author notes everywhere to explain this high-flying thought process of mine for the mere mortals who can't comprehend this shit. /seriousfuckingsarcasm. Then I read the Iconoclast's ramblings on his own stuff and realised that a) I really don't actually care that much, and b) doing that stuff is just as productive as explaining jokes is in general. The material you write should stand on its own. Sure, having behind-the-scenes stuff available can be interesting, but your writing shouldn't depend on readers being interested of that right this bloody instant. Some people will always skip the footnotes.

David Foster Wallace used tons of footnotes, at least in his non-fiction stuff. On the other hand, Hemingway never explained anything in his literature. So, you can go either way (or somewhere in between), but what's important is being good at it and knowing if it works for the piece.

Good news! Sweet finally found the remote that Obama made him lose.

I found mine buried under the chair cushions. We just need to clean up in here a little.

(pan over to a chair heaped with old newspapers and clutter, and a floor littered with trash, discarded giftwrap, dry brown pine needles, and holiday leftovers)

Okay, a lot.

(http://usaspatriot.proboards.com/thread/1431/ajm-studios-news-december-2014?page=17)

 

[MrsFrizzle]

Well, now I see how the roaches get into the casseroles chez Sweet.

 

[Le Bateleur]

Just as a warning, the following Sweet content is liable to leave a sour taste. It contains his views on sexual predators.

I mean, if a man preys on a 13-year-old girl, he's a monster, but a hot woman with a 13-year-old boy is almost regarded as "cute". It's the new double standard. And, yes, there are female rapists. If some young thing misrepresents herself, she should be jailed like any man. She is a predator in my eyes. I don't care if she is just 14 or 15; that to me is old enough to know not to rub herself against some twentysomething guy like a housecat and put herself in a situation where something untoward could happen. There is nothing more pathetic than a man standing before a judge and saying "But she told me she was 18". Why should a man spend his life on a sexual predator list just because he doesn't want to play bar bouncer and check her ID before letting her in his bed?

(Source, backup)​

Today I heard a news story about a 24-year-old guy who met a 12-year-old girl a MySpace chat, went to her house, and had sex with her and her 16-year-old friend. Now he's going to jail. The bias inherent in this story had be gritting my teeth. What got me was (a) she let him in through the window and (b)her mom was sleeping right down the hall during the whole thing. What sort of dense, oblivious woman is this mother? What kind of upbringinging did this girl have that she thought it'd be fun to meet a guy online, get him all het up, and then agree to seal the deal right under her mom's roof--and, hey, I'll even bring a friend while we're at it? And what kind of left-leaning media do we have in this country that immediately assumes the big ol' hairy guy is the predator and the sweet young thing is the victim? Seems to me that she led him on, probably lied about her age, and his only crime was failing to realize that if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Not one news report ever suggested any wrongdoing on the girl's part, or pointed to her mother as a negligent parent. This is the kind of girl who in a few years' time is going to be gobbling knobs and downing Jell-O shots at a fleabag frathouse at some state college, then end the evening hurling on her shoes while her date is drunkenly taking a leak in a trashcan on the back stairs of a residence hall at three a.m...because of her brainless enabler mom who despite all evidence insists her daughter is a pure little angel.

(Source, backup)​

Reading between the lines, I think Sweet cannot get over the fact that he was denied BASICALLY PROMISED china by his 90s Julay, so he paints her - and underage girls in general - as evil predators. How dare these evil girls not let him have what he's entitled to? Why must he be a virgin with rage?

Even when Sweet tries to use his father's death to guilt Ashlaay into having pity sex with him, it has no effect on this monster!

A few months into our relationship I told her about my father dying of a heart attack (admittedly, trying to cash in on a little sympathy sex--not like she hadn't been promising me tail for weeks, right?...saw my opportunity, took it), and she freaked out and dropped out of my life. A month later she came back, but it was never was quite the same, and when we finally met up she made an excuse and broke things off completely.

(Source, backup)​

Horrible as that passage is, I think it explains why "Ashleigh" took a month off from trolling Sweet - if the guy's dad has just died and his reaction is to "now she has to give it up", it's probably enough to make any troll reconsider what they're getting themselves into.

To cap this all off, Sweet is determined to track his former heartsweet down, and he seems to believe that journalists newspapermen are exempt from a number of laws - provided they have a press badge.

Obviously you know nothing about journalism. I'm a former newspaperman; I know. If you have a press badge it's like a liscense to kill. You can harass private citizens, camp out on someone's lawn, even break into their house and search their belongings, whatever it takes to get a story. That's what they did to that plumber who criticized Obama, remember? All I'm doing is trying to get the truth out about a young woman who is endangering her life and the lives of others. I did love her once. You may not agree with my way of showing it, but I worry the next guy she plays her silly sex game with might not be as forgiving as I. I'd rather not pick up the morning paper and read about her found dead in a ditch somewhere.

(Source, backup)​

I say we should encorage bloggers to register for licenses just like any other branch of the media, which would permit them greater leeway in researching stories, such as being able to enter private property without fear of arrest. (Though I must ask, does Michael Moore cary a press badge? How many times has he landed in jail for invasion of privacy while filming one of his pieces?)

(Source, backup)​

However, even the lack of a magic press badge hasn't deterred Sweet from some trespassing in the past, leading to a run-in with a Jerkop...

I must confess I spent a few hours in a holding cell a few years back, for trespassing on private property and being very rude to the officer who questioned me.

(Source, backup)​

In all, Sweet creeps me out significantly more than he used to...