Questionable Content XV: I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS! I Told You This Thread Was Weird

[The Glyphstone]

Anyone remember back in the Vespavenger arc, when the cops were driving around with booze and hot-boxing their cruiser? I was archive binging and ran across that bit.

[Keltest]

Anyone remember back in the Vespavenger arc, when the cops were driving around with booze and hot-boxing their cruiser? I was archive binging and ran across that bit.

See, I would have a significantly easier time swallowing a "the cops in QC are comedically inept but basically well meaning, and so Roko feels like its a dead end for actual proactive good" arc. Its less actively offensive and even explains why "go to the cops" isn't ever an effective resolution to problems.

[The Glyphstone]

See, I would have a significantly easier time swallowing a "the cops in QC are comedically inept but basically well meaning, and so Roko feels like its a dead end for actual proactive good" arc. Its less actively offensive and even explains why "go to the cops" isn't ever an effective resolution to problems.

I wonder if his attitudes changed, or if that's just a symptom of how Cerberus Syndrome set in.

[Keltest]

I wonder if his attitudes changed, or if that's just a symptom of how Cerberus Syndrome set in.

Probably both. I suspect that Jeph was less concerned with taking pot shots at real people and organizations when his comic was less connected to contemporary issues.

[The Glyphstone]

Probably both. I suspect that Jeph was less concerned with taking pot shots at real people and organizations when his comic was less connected to contemporary issues.

Amusingly, the very next page actually brushes on that:

https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=750

A punchline about the US government employing violent psychopaths gets an immediate post-comic pre-emptive "Its a joke people, don't take it seriously" post.

[Yana]

I don't think it's likely that he'll be making a statement similar to that anymore.

[Keltest]

Im looking at the comic, and I'm terrified of this latest update.

[The Glyphstone]

Of Melon or Spooky?

(The answer is Yes.)

[Wraith]

That was either an incredibly smooth segue from woke real-world political activism to wacky hijinks.... Or it wasn't. I'm genuinely struggling to tell.

[Willie the Duck]

That was either an incredibly smooth segue from woke real-world political activism to wacky hijinks.... Or it wasn't. I'm genuinely struggling to tell.

In that you can't decide if it was smooth or not?

I would say it was neither smooth nor clumsy, Jeph just looked like he was headed in one direction, and then ended up not. It wasn't all that abrupt (4038 being the last major movement accelerating the political message trend, 4039 being mostly interpersonal anger about said issue, and Friday's strip being mostly interpersonal with just a remaining reference to the political issue stuff), so it's not even clearly a fake-out/turning away from the cliff. It's kind of like being a passenger in a car when you are used to driving -- was that a close call and my driver notice that obstacle at the last minute, or did they know about it the whole time?

[Wraith]

In that you can't decide if it was smooth or not?

In that I wasn't sure if there was a segue or not. Roko just stopped being angry about being incalculably overshadowed, and suddenly they had entered a building and had climbed several flights of stairs before resuming their conversation.

It was either such a smooth transition that I completely missed it or - as you so quite elegantly explained with your metaphor - a break-neck diversion from one direction to the other without warning. Maybe I'm being picky, but it appears that Jeph likes to draw streets and the inside of apartments, but nothing (artistically or physically) in between.

[Kato]

I'm glad we got away from the political discussion and back to whacky shenanigans. Any bets on how Spooky and Melon will interact? Love at first sight?

[Ibrinar]

Bad cops should be punished, fired, and barred from working in any capacity that holds authority, but the blanket hatred of cops is missing the entire forest for the bad apple trees.

I still find it super weird that people like to reference that saying when defending the US police. The full saying is "a bad apple spoils the bunch", the implication is that if you don't remove it they all become bad. It is not an appropriate saying if you want to say that a few bad ones don't make them all bad.

[Max_Killjoy]

I still find it super weird that people like to reference that saying when defending the US police. The full saying is "a bad apple spoils the bunch", the implication is that if you don't remove it they all become bad. It is not an appropriate saying if you want to say that a few bad ones don't make them all bad.

I was mixing idioms.

[Evil DM Mark3]

I still find it super weird that people like to reference that saying when defending the US police. The full saying is "a bad apple spoils the bunch", the implication is that if you don't remove it they all become bad. It is not an appropriate saying if you want to say that a few bad ones don't make them all bad.

I agree with this. One of the biggest problems with the police in almost any country, and very much in the USA, is the fact that they defend each other and cover for the behaviour that makes some people despise them on an institutional level. And its weird because the flagrant abuses are always defended as a few bad apples. A few rotten apples spoil the barrel, so don't nail the barrel lid down to prevent us getting at the bad apples!

This is, of course, not a new problem. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, after all?

I think I have put my finger on why Roko's change of heart doesn't feel satisfactory to me. She bumped into May and did her job correctly and didn't like the fear she got in return. OK. Her quitting in that situation speaks to personal fragility quite frankly.

Now imagine if another cop had ACTUALLY threatened to lie about May to get info, perhaps wanting info about her current employer (after all Roko certainly thinks he is up to something by default) and when Roko objected it didn't go well, perhaps with her Chief just saying "be more careful" to the cop or even "Its just how this job works" to Roko. Quitting then, when there is an active incident that she does not want to be the "good one" for, a fig leaf to excuse corrupt behaviour, would have felt more genuine and, I think, have produced far less of the current backlash.

[Max_Killjoy]

Imagine if we stopped talking about politics before we got the thread locked.

I'm itching to reply beyond my personal concern for the safety of police like my brother, but I'm waiting to see if for some reason we're allowed to post political commentary here in an exception to the normal rule.

[jwhouk]

Alice Grove ended a lot like how Game of Thrones ended.

That is not a compliment.

[AvatarVecna]

I was mixing idioms.

You were, but there's an awful lot of people who use just the "bad apples" defense who can't seem to remember the second part of the idiom. But that's neither here nor there.

[Mechalich]

I agree with this. One of the biggest problems with the police in almost any country, and very much in the USA, is the fact that they defend each other and cover for the behaviour that makes some people despise them on an institutional level. And its weird because the flagrant abuses are always defended as a few bad apples. A few rotten apples spoil the barrel, so don't nail the barrel lid down to prevent us getting at the bad apples!

This is not unique to police, its a consequence of how public institutions function, especially within the extant US legal framework. Police unions are legally mandated to defend the behavior of their members, no matter how egregious, while at the same time police management is hesitant to punish low-level offenses because it requires a long and complex process to successfully adjudicate events through the administrative process agreed upon with the union and without a profit motive there's little incentive for managers to bother when they can simply use other more convenient executive actions to make the problem go away (such as by transferring the officer in question somewhere else). This failure to enact disciplinary action produces precedent that the union is then legally obligated to use to defend future incidents with a 'if you didn't punish A for X, how can you now punish B for X' argument, which is fairly bulletproof until you have a managerial changeover.

Consequently the ability to 'run a tight ship' within a civic agency - whether it be police, teachers, or a parks & rec department - is dependent upon a manager who's willing to come in, kick a** and take names and be hated by their subordinates over the long term. This is uncommon, for a variety of reasons, and as a result institutional frameworks tend to gradually degrade until circumstances are noticed by some outside oversight group and remedial action is take to restore the balance. Note that large private sector organizations tend to have exactly the same problems, albeit in a slightly different fashion due to the absence of unions, it's just that sufficient inefficiencies have a shorter leash because they impede profits.

The reason to explain all this is that it is very important, when writing stories that heavily feature institutions, to understand the nature of institutional systems and how they shape actions taken within them. Jeph has, so as I know, never worked within government of any kind or for a sufficiently large corporate entity to have a large-scale institutional culture. He simply doesn't understand how these kinds of environments work and it shows. By contrast, he clearly understands how struggling 20-something would-be musicians and baristas go through life. QC is extremely personally referential and when the stories hew strongly to Jeph's life experience they are far stronger than when they expand outside of that zone. Recent plotlines have involved Jeph projecting his personal political opinions onto a setup that he clearly lacks the knowledge to properly contextualize in-universe, and they have suffered for it.

[Keltest]

Ok, this was a genuinely funny strip. Also, good for Roko for having some fun.

[Evil DM Mark3]

I'd be careful there Yay. Naming the unknowable being is a staple of ancient myth so there is plenty of mythological president that would imply Mellon now owns you.

[Kato]

I'd be careful there Yay. Naming the unknowable being is a staple of ancient myth so there is plenty of mythological president that would imply Mellon now owns you.

Unless Jeph plans something incredibly dark for her future I don't think Melon has any idea what to do with Yay, but at least they have a new name.
But... do AIs have parents?! Or is Melon genuinely too simple to realize that even?

[Evil DM Mark3]

But... do AIs have parents?!

No, not based on what Clinton said about his potential career prospects. Melon is just, Meloning I think.

[Vinyadan]

Those of you calling for Jeph to write other styles/scopes etc of stories, did any of you read Alice Grove? Wondering what your thoughts on that were.

I have read it. If there had been more of it, I would have kept reading. From a storytelling perspective, it focused more on the story and gave away almost nothing in world building, which I believe is good. However, the ending was rushed and pulled a trope from a very well-known movie. It was funny to see blue Marten with a tail.

I wonder if his attitudes changed, or if that's just a symptom of how Cerberus Syndrome set in.

The one in which you grow three heads and start barking at whoever doesn't throw you a mud ball?

[Wraith]

The one in which you grow three heads and start barking at whoever doesn't throw you a mud ball?

Cerberus Syndrome. The short version is, it's what happens when a comedic TV show/comic/whatever goes on for long enough and slowly becomes less focused on the humour and more on the drama, often to the point where the more recent updates are virtually unrecognisable to the early ones. Named after a long-running print comic called Cerberus the Aardvark.

I don't quite think that QC has reached that point. It's possibly going that direction, but it's still primarily a comedy/slice of life comic that occasionally gets used by the author to rant at what's wrong with the world and how he thinks it should be easily fixed. When we see Marten and Faye at a political rally holding a placard about the evils of government tyranny, maybe then we'll have reached the point of no return.

[Rodin]

Cerberus Syndrome. The short version is, it's what happens when a comedic TV show/comic/whatever goes on for long enough and slowly becomes less focused on the humour and more on the drama, often to the point where the more recent updates are virtually unrecognisable to the early ones. Named after a long-running print comic called Cerberus the Aardvark.

I don't quite think that QC has reached that point. It's possibly going that direction, but it's still primarily a comedy/slice of life comic that occasionally gets used by the author to rant at what's wrong with the world and how he thinks it should be easily fixed. When we see Marten and Faye at a political rally holding a placard about the evils of government tyranny, maybe then we'll have reached the point of no return.

I think you just totally missed the joke.

Cerberus Syndrome involves sprouting 3 heads and barking.

Cerebus Syndrome, on the other hand....

[Wraith]

I think you just totally missed the joke.

Really? Because I think I have been accidentally misreading "Cerebus Syndrome" as "Cerberus Syndrome" for... 15 years, give or take, and never realised that it was different until just now?

Please excuse me for just a moment, while I crawl away in order to find a hole in which I can die.

[Vinyadan]

Yea, it was a joke on the misspelling: Cerberus vs Cerebus. But QC has always displayed a serious-facetious alternation, so I don't think it has really happened, or, if it has, it was a very long time ago. As a side note, it always has made me mad that it's not written Cerberus or Erebus.

Instead, I would say that QC jumped the shark with the introduction of Squidbot, because it was just as extraneous to the comic as, well, that guy jumping a shark.

And it definitely has shifted genre. It isn't a slice-of-life anymore, it is a didactic comic now.

[firstly]

Looks really weird

[Max_Killjoy]

Appears to be down at the moment.

I wonder if the AIs hacked it for getting too close to the truth.