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

[Meowthkip]

Because his pens kept running out of ink.

Maybe if he didn't use ballpoint pens he wouldn't have that problem.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Maybe if he didn't use ballpoint pens[...]

Or if he didn't have that apparent "fear of empty space" thing you mentioned.

 

[Le Bateleur]

I read somewhere on his website that an earlier issue had messed-up colour because he converted from .bmp to .jpg, seemingly without understanding why...

 

[MrsFrizzle]

A psychiatrist's session does not cost $500, even with the most expensive psychiatrists in New York. In Arkansas in the 1990s? No fucking way.

To give Mr. Sweet credit where credit is due, the lettering on that page is much better than usual.

 

[Ca Ira]

Jon-Boy posted another amazing page of comic art over at the Patriot Brony forums:

This page really highlights to me how completely and utterly Sweet fails at sequential art. I'm just going to do a panel by panel breakdown, because I haven't in a while.

Spoiler

Panel 1: Actually looks okay at a first glance, but the more you look at it the more fucked up it becomes. Okay, there's some guys sitting on a couch in the background, laughing. Then there's somebody sitting next to the coffee table in the foreground, facing the sofa but not interacting with the stickperson seated on it, for some reason. Said stickperson's body becomes an incomprehensible mass of lines blending in with the sofa so that the only really clear thing about her is her seemingly disembodied head floating amidst the chaos. Then you notice that the guy you thought was sitting up is actually probably supposed to be lying down on the floor, but because Jon fails at perspective it looks completely wrong, and also there's someone behind Stickgirl because this panel wasn't crowded and nonsensical enough. There's a random speech bubble at the bottom of the panel that looks like it wasn't intended to be connected to this panel at all and actively disrupts the visual flow of the page.
Panel 2: What the christ is wrong with Alfichu's legs? Seriously, he looks like his pelvis should be splitting in two the way they're drawn.
Panel 3: Speed lines to indicate the characters' movement because Sweet apparently can't portray motion in any less obvious way. The speech bubbles should be switched if he wants the dialogue to make any goddamned sense.
Panel 4: I presume that the characters and set-pieces in this panel are meant to be the "fleabag dorm" described in the caption, but if so why is there a small child and a hulking gorilla-man there?
Panel 5: Not too bad, all things considered, except how is that stickperson forming such a substantial mass underneath the bedclothes? And why is half this page drawn in black and half in blue?
Panels 6-???: Everything goes to hell in the center of this page. What order am I supposed to read in? Where is the viewer's eye meant to be drawn? Is there any sense of logical progression that the author intends his audience to follow? Obviously the answer to that last question is "No" because the dialogue slops out of one panel into another and back again with no rhyme or reason. Just as the eye gets accustomed to moving in one direction across the page the progression of the scene demands it jump back up to another position entirely and then down past material that it's already looked at.
Center panel: I think Jon is supposed to be surprised or stunned, but he looks horrified. His expression doesn't so much say "My girlfriend has just given me an amazing and unexpected present" so much as "Kevin Spacey has just given me my loved one's severed head in a box."
Panel X: There is so much wrong with the panel of the dog smooching the cat that I can't even deal. That dog's anatomy is completely fucked in every way imaginable. I'm unreasonably bothered by the fact that they have human-looking feet.
Panel Wet-Nap: Bunch of Alfichus standing on a bed, I think, with a random stickperson lounging near them and two more stickpeople in the foreground of the panel.
Pemble Tuberson: Awkward overhead shot of two stickpeople, one of whom is dressed appropriately and the other of whom is apparently bare-ass naked.
Dread Cthulhu slumbers: Two misshapen lumps mashed together with "The End" barely legible and shoved off to the side.

Fucking baby Jesus what a goddamned mess. No doubt Sweet will start huffing about how I don't understand his genius or he never had no formal edjamacashun or it looks better colored, but the truth is he's just a shitty artist. That in and of itself isn't the problem, though; the problem is that he's a shitty artist who doesn't even want to try to get better.

My god, this is as densely laid out as a page of "Where's Waldo?"

I particularly agree with you on the panel with Jonichu receiving the skull ring. Coming up to it, I assumed that his girlfriend was going to accidentally give him a cursed artifact or something.

Sweet wishes he had a loving girlfriend and a cohort of wacky friends to spend new year's with.

Okay listen you. I was not going to read 130+ pages about this guy, but I did read your post. And I opened the images. And I saw the inane cast of whatever shit comic this is roll up to a bunch of people are casually refer to them as "wetbacks".

Now I have a lot of clicking to do today.

Welcome to Jigaboo Junction!

 

[Treenbeen]

A psychiatrist's session does not cost $500, even with the most expensive psychiatrists in New York. In Arkansas in the 1990s? No fucking way.

To give Mr. Sweet credit where credit is due, the lettering on that page is much better than usual.

As someone who has attended mental health counseling for depression, I can confirm that it is nowhere near $500 a session, and that sliding scales exist...

 

[Meowthkip]

Or if he didn't have that apparent "fear of empty space" thing you mentioned.

That too. There are artists that can do that sort of thing well. Sweet is not one of them.

 

[Chan the Wizard]

Presumably he could have used student health services as well. Sweets is rarely clear or honest with what was actually said or done, but regardless the $500 price tag is bullshit even without insurance.

Unless they wanted him to be inpatient or something.

 

[Holdek]

A psychiatrist's session does not cost $500, even with the most expensive psychiatrists in New York. In Arkansas in the 1990s? No fucking way.

It depends on what they wanted him to do. If they wanted him to take a full psychometric assessment then it could have cost a lot more than a regular session, as those can take several hours to complete and they have to be proctored and analyzed by a professional.

However, in most cases people don't have to take a full assessment, particularly if they can't afford it or insurance doesn't want to pay for it.

Still, if he was making violent threats in his letters to the newspaper staff and seemed to be saying stuff that was cognitively distorted ("there is no sketch," "they are trying to kill me with trash cans,") they may have wanted to run a full battery on him.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

So does the self-insert of Sweet have any superpowers, or is the cape (and hat full of buttons) just for show?

 

[MrsFrizzle]

It depends on what they wanted him to do. If they wanted him to take a full psychometric assessment then it could have cost a lot more than a regular session, as those can take several hours to complete and they have to be proctored and analyzed by a professional.

However, in most cases people don't have to take a full assessment, particularly if they can't afford it or insurance doesn't want to pay for it.

Still, if he was making violent threats in his letters to the newspaper staff and seemed to be saying stuff that was cognitively distorted ("there is no sketch," "they are trying to kill me with trash cans,") they may have wanted to run a full battery on him.

Still not buying it, though I hadn't thought of the potential costs of a thorough assessment rather than the "counseling session" Sweetums referred to.

 

[Picklechu]

So does the self-insert of Sweet have any superpowers, or is the cape (and hat full of buttons) just for show?

He's shapeshifted into a shovel at least once, so he has that going for him.

 

[Holdek]

Still not buying it, though I hadn't thought of the potential costs of a thorough assessment rather than the "counseling session" Sweetums referred to.

To be clear, I can't imagine a scenario where they wanted him to do a psych thing he couldn't afford, and then kicked him out of school when he wasn't able to pay for it.

They may have suggested he apply for more financial aid/student loan to pay for it, though, and so he balked.

And, as you point out, he describes it as a "counseling session," which at universities are often free, or at a most about $15 (in 2015 dollars), but then again he does get confused about things a lot.

 

[Bound2]

I take it everyone has probably seen Sweet's last post in the Kiwi Correspondence thread

Spoiler

concerned said:
[O]ur endgame is to help you live a fulfilling life. To try and help you not wallow in your misery as you continue to do.

No, your endgame is to make me miserable by misrepresenting me, confusing everything I say with your unrelenting stupidity and obfuscation, and forcing me to constantly question whether or not everything I ever loved in college was even real. You think you're doing me a favor, but you're not. Do you not realize that when you steal my little bit of remaining hope, my dream of someday rebuilding my life the way it used to be by telling me it was all a lie (and then denying you even do so), all you leave behind is pain and anger... and when that finally explodes, a lot of people are going to get hurt? Possibly even you?

Have you ever noticed that the people who give you the same tired old "get a job" speech are always the ones who already have a good job? It's never the ones who have bosses who hate them, coworkers who are plotting against them behind their backs (well, that they know about, anyway), or are forced to deal with customers who act like brain-damaged rejects from a Kevin Smith film. And they always say the same thing: "I am truly indispensable at my job." Yeah, that's what I said, just one bare month before I was let go from the campus paper... and my life started getting weird.

...you had used your brother's computer without permission while he was in jail... Then ... he came and took his computer - his property, by the way ...

Actually, it was never his. It was Dale's computer which he left behind when he skipped town, and it was supposed to be shared equally among the family. But, like anything else he wanted, my brother simply grabbed it for himself. He put it in his room, kept it under lock and key, and threw fits at anyone else who wanted to use it.

I bought one commemorative brick, e-mailed to my former mentor about visiting campus to use some equipment, was viciously insulted and threatened for no reason, and then weeks later I bought the second, figuring I'd never get to see the first one. See? Nothing sinister at all. No lie, no terrible cover-up. I think what happens is that you people tell my stories wrong, make up details, fabricate whole conversations, thoroughly confuse yourselves, and finally, when your tiny, backwards brains can't cope, just flat-out deny any of it ever happened. Then you get mad when I try to correct you and call me a liar. That's how fundamentally stupid you folks are. You have to remember that a blog post is a snapshot in time, and both feelings and stories change as new information is learned. Memories get soft around the edges as time passes. Half the time you're going on about things I wrote in 2004 or '05 or screaming about things that went down over 20 years ago and expecting me to recall them clear as crystal. I was reading some manuscript notes way back from 1999 the other day and I was amazed how many stories I haven't yet told and transcribed accounts of newsroom conversations which I had long forgotten.

Here is the latest one, fresh from the diseased mind of Jonathon Sweet. Prepare for many links.

Stop being a pot calling the kettle black.

Treenbeen said: May I ask why it is that when a couple of people online follow posts that Dr. Belch puts up and discuss them, it's "scary and stalkerish", but when Dr. Belch hunts down people from 20 years ago that he barely had any association with, writes to their employers, comes up with child pornography schemes to get them into trouble, wants to destroy their lives and families, and has actually threatened violence against several people several times, that's not concerning to you?

The difference is, the people I'm trying to find have hurt me personally or taken something I love from me. They are horrible, dangerous people and deserve to be punished. Your "friends" are just cyber-stalkers and nuisances. I've done nothing that impacts their lives at all. They have to go out of their way to read my work, and then they cry about how offended they are. God forbid you draw a comic showing a rude caricature of a person of color...but it's apparently okay, even honorable, to brutally slaughter four black youth on your front lawn with a power tool, or, hey maybe run them over with a car (well, at least on alternate Thursdays when the KCWC Koalas actually believe the story's real, since these people are champions at bending reality so hard it squeaks, so they're never consistent). These gibbering sociopaths persist in torturing me, and are even talking about looking up my college records to see if I graduated, even though they have at their site a photo of me in my cap and gown. Are you that stupid? Reality is not a consensus, morons.

They refuse to make any connection between my experiences at A-State and any issues and behaviors I may have that they continually harangue me for. Their progressive ideology must forever remain ultimate and infallible-- for them, 2=2 will forever equal rutabaga.

Besides, why is a jailable offense to put together an explicit photo, but an actual underage girl being pimped out by her boyfriend for phone sex with a total stranger is a cute, harmless little college prank? Hello, selective moral outrage, my old friend.

Apparently, when angry, the native Sweetiepie posts excessive amounts of links and very angry smilie faces. I don't know about you guys but I am certainly intimidated.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

They have to go out of their way to read my work, and then they cry about how offended they are. God forbid you draw a comic showing a rude caricature of a person of color...but it's apparently okay, even honorable, to brutally slaughter four black youth on your front lawnwith a power tool, or, hey maybe run them over with a car

Nice straw man Sweets, deliberately taking the notion of defending your family from a gang brutally beating your mom to death which, thankfully, only ended in her partial blindness out of context to call your detractors hypocrites, which is also an ad hominem, just to let you know.

You do realize that you have just defended the very people who assaulted your parent with blunt weapons in defense of your racism, right? Pathetic. This proves that you would fucking say anything to worm your way out of being a real man. If anything, you are the sociopath here.

You are what defines a loser.

You disgust me.

Grow up.

 

[Adamska]

Oh boy, more failure from Jon Thumb, master of incompetence.

The difference is, the people I'm trying to find have hurt me personally or taken something I love from me. They are horrible, dangerous people and deserve to be punished.

Translation: "I only give a fuck about me! Fuck erryone else since my feelings are the only ones that matter!"

By God, I think he's still in the egocentrist stage of development as posited by Piaget. That legit means that he's stuck in a preoperational level. I must know if he understands constancy and other forms of logic or no, since if this is true, then he is at the same level as most young children. He would legitimately be on the level of a child!

Your "friends" are just cyber-stalkers and nuisances.

You do remember that you were the little goblin that actually revived this thread right? You know, the one that wasn't even a page long and whose last response was a year prior? The one who through his own desire to get in the last word and idiocy, have made this thread into what it is?

I've done nothing that impacts their lives at all. They have to go out of their way to read my work, and then they cry about how offended they are.

See my previous post. In fact, let me show you:

I wrote the last post back in May of 2013.

I WANNA GET THE LAST WORD IN BECAUSE I'M THE ETERNAL VICTIM. ALSO THIS POST TOOK PLACE IN JUNE OF 2014!

We really didn't get that far into you prior, most of the convos you're referencing only occurred since you were fucktarded enough to keep the thread going for dozens of pages. So really, your attempts at pity and denoting us as stalkers is as shit as your understanding of politics. Especially since you googled your own name most likely to find this dead thread.

God forbid you draw a comic showing a rude caricature of a person of color...

A rude caricature? Bro, your entire comic is fucking full of them. From the backdrop to the characters themselves. It fucking permeates the comics as shown by the episode that was posted here on drugs. No. Don't you even fucking try to downplay it.

but it's apparently okay, even honorable, to brutally slaughter four black youth on your front lawn with a power tool, or, hey maybe run them over with a car

So sitting there doing nothing like a derp when your MOM could've been killed is alright? And then trying to use this story to fish for pity is alright?!

(well, at least on alternate Thursdays when the KCWC Koalas actually believe the story's real , since these people are champions at bending reality so hard it squeaks, so they're never consistent)

We do that because you're the asshole who keeps "remembering" details and changing elements in the story to try and dance out of being the shitty person in them or to drop your involvement in them. So don't blame us for keeping the story straight.

These gibbering sociopaths persist in torturing me

We're not the ones who use Whitewash Jones speak to mock others.

and are even talking about looking up my college records to see if I graduated

Yep, you know, like how a journalist looks up a story? You know, the same reasons you use to stalk women and others because of slights that occured back when the next two generations was swimming around in their daddy's ballsack?

even though they have at their site a photo of me in my cap and gown.

Which can also mean getting a High School Diploma, since they too merit the cap and gown. Besides, if you do have the degree, why did you never bother to use it for alternative media such as a blog, or a right wing online paper, or for fucking Cracked after all these years?

Are you that stupid? Reality is not a consensus, morons.

Oh hey, we agree here. Except that you clearly don't since you are still stuck in a massive delusion where most, of if not all of, your problems in life hail from others rather than from you.

They refuse to make any connection between my experiences at A-State and any issues and behaviors I may have that they continually harangue me for.

Because you have actually stated at times things you do that indicate the issues you have now existed way before you got kicked out of College. Best examples being that you butt into other convos uninvited and stare like a creepy fuck at people because. Also being an asshole and hogging the TV and being lazy by goofing off all day by watching kids shows.

Their progressive ideology must forever remain ultimate and infallible-- for them, 2=2 will forever equal rutabaga.

Says the rube who seriously believes in pyramid power.

Besides, why is a jailable offense to put together an explicit photo, but an actual underage girl being pimped out by her boyfriend for phone sex with a total stranger is a cute, harmless little college prank?

Did you try to reference me here, since I posited your roomie as possibly being the one to fuck with you? Well first off, never described it as cute, or even harmless. I legit just said they might have did it for the lulz, that's it for motive. The way I see it, if that was the scenario that happened, is that Ashlaaay was calling your roomie to talk with him. You decide to be a freaky little perverted man and hit on her, and she goes "oh wow, who is this loser". She vaguely plays along with this since it's only via phone. Roomie meets with her later, and this tale comes out. They decide this is hilarious since look at how desperate this fuck is. This "relationship" goes on for a few months, getting more and more disturbing by the day. Until one day you ambush her and creep her the fuck out by using your dead dad as the reason why you deserve sex right now from her. That breaks it off.

And to quote from you: Hello, selective moral outrage, my old friend.

 

[Le Bateleur]

So basically Sweet Bro has decided unilaterally that his enemies are guilty and deserve punishment. This is clearly contrary to their rights under the 5th and 6th Amendments.

Why does Jonathan M. Sweet hate America?

 

[Ca Ira]

Besides, why is a jailable offense to put together an explicit photo, but an actual underage girl being pimped out by her boyfriend for phone sex with a total stranger is a cute, harmless little college prank?

That's a slightly new permutation of the Ashleigh story.

 

[MrsFrizzle]

"The people I'm trying to find"?!?! Dude, every one of those people has a Facebook and/or Twitter account that is findable in two minutes. Whatta newsman!

 

[Ruin]

Fuck this racist asshole. I hope this thread lives on forever.