Tim Buckley has announced that the Ctrl-Alt-Del webcomic is ending, in its current format at least. And unlike the LFG thread that popped up recently (and got my hopes up) this is actually true.
For those that don't want to go to the actual site: the main storyline, with Ethan, Lucas, Lilah et al, is finished, and no longer the main focus of the comic. The characters will reappear, but any 'story' comics will be collected into a 22-24 page comic book and released all at once. The weekly comic is returning to the more topical game related gags he started with, mostly focussing on the 'gamer' characters he's used in the past.
CAD has come in for a lot of flak over the years, especially during the miscarriage storyline: I was someone who stopped reading around that time (mostly as I don't find entertainment in character's suffering), but eventually went back. Like many comic artists I think Tim has been criticised for trying to write a print comic in a webcomic format. Unlike some, it appears he agrees, hence the restricting story comics to 'books' to be released in one go. It will be interesting to see where this goes from here.
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Evil round every corner, careful not to step in any.
'Here lies a
wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked
caitiffs left!
Here lie I, Tim; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay
not here thy gait.'
I didn't really have much to say about this comic. It was kinda bland and I lost track of it shortly after the miscarriage storyline. I won't miss Ethan. He was kinda a jerk and his jackassery didn't bite him in the rump enough.
Treats customers like crap, still gets customers.
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Originally Posted by Neoriceisgood
Why are you guys combining DD and Logic anyway?
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Originally Posted by Mogotoo
In the hope that we can neutralize DD in the same way that a base neutralizes an acid?
I didn't really have much to say about this comic. It was kinda bland and I lost track of it shortly after the miscarriage storyline. I won't miss Ethan. He was kinda a jerk and his jackassery didn't bite him in the rump enough.
Treats customers like crap, still gets customers.
It's nice that his actions caused a horrible apocalypse that he was blamed for though. Oh, and he causes the end of the universe.
I read it a bit years ago, but I lost track of it way before it garnered the controversy that it is currently known for.
Personally, I found Ethan to be a pretty okay character, and the "serious" parts of the storyline added to the whole. Of course, I don't know what he did with it later; checking the last page now, I can see why he might have gone a bit overboard with it.
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Quoth the raven, "Polly wants a cracker."
Canon is the official state of a story. Cannon is a ranged weapon. Just thought you'd like to know.
Pony avatar by the Great and Powerful DirtyTabs. Lotsa hugs!
Meh, i think the hate spiraled out of control. Yeah yeah miscarriage, blah de bloo, one bad arc does not a comic strip ruin. I think the main problem was pretty much exactly what he said in his post, he started the strip as a gag a day silly thing, and then when he tried to turn it into a story, he kept hitting the brick wall of how his characters personalities had already been developed. It was a decent comic overall, nothing awesome, but not that bad. I am looking forward to seeing where he goes from here.
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"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
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Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama
Traab is yelling everything that I'm thinking already.
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
I've always read the comic. I think the miscarriage arc as well done (if you didn't know, it was right around the time when Tim and his wife had a similar experience, sor therapuetic in that regard). Geenrally the comic is slightly snarky (Lukate paring anyone?) but then it changed tone and IMO really showed that the comic was capable to probe some more mature topics as well. it amazed me even. On ethan being a jerk. yes. yes he is, however, I know a lot of people who apart from actually making it known to the customer, think it all the time. Customers are the biggest jerks around. they have in their the notion ow entering a shop and thus being entitled to wear a crown and treat shop owners and attendants worse then they'd treat the crap under their shoes. BTW I especially liked the winter-een-mas stories and the story about little boy starting here. It was just heartwarming.
On the other hand I think it's a good moment for a reboot since at the moment the stories were becoming very far fetched. Anyway, I'll see what happens.
__________________ "Where do promiscious fillies go?" - Awesome Tyrion Ponytar by Elemental
On ethan being a jerk. yes. yes he is, however, I know a lot of people who apart from actually making it known to the customer, think it all the time. Customers are the biggest jerks around. they have in their the notion ow entering a shop and thus being entitled to wear a crown and treat shop owners and attendants worse then they'd treat the crap under their shoes.
Thing is, Ethan's customers are little more than naive, stupid and inexperienced. They only start being jerks when Ethan refuses to help them and starts insulting them. IIRC, only the weird goth chick that stirred up controversy for supposedly being a ripoff was actively jerkish toward him.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neoriceisgood
Why are you guys combining DD and Logic anyway?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mogotoo
In the hope that we can neutralize DD in the same way that a base neutralizes an acid?
Thing is, Ethan's customers are little more than naive, stupid and inexperienced. They only start being jerks when Ethan refuses to help them and starts insulting them. IIRC, only the weird goth chick that stirred up controversy for supposedly being a ripoff was actively jerkish toward him.
No, teh goth girl was challenging the system like a DnD optimizer (if you cant that jerkish, ok). For the rest the customers are as developed as Blandy McTasteless
__________________ "Where do promiscious fillies go?" - Awesome Tyrion Ponytar by Elemental
I think the comic could have had a better ending than this. Stupid and irritating though the characters could be at times, I did actually grow to like them and the various storylines.
"Existence ends, everyone dies" is a crap way to say goodbye to characters that people have been following for years. =/
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Originally Posted by Dallas-Dakota
Succubus gets grongratulatory cookies from me. You have stepped into the realm of puns that only the likes of Death, Your Friend the Reaper have seen.
The end of a mediocre webcomic is definitely not a joke, and I have no intention of making light of it. And it can be a tough and emotional thing for readers to go through, speaking from personal experience. And I know that it's often much harder on the fans than on the creator. However, I also know that it doesn't necessarily turn you into a sad, depressed sack of tears for the rest of your life. People can move past it, and heal.
The man can't write a serious story to save his life.
Seriously, the biggest complaint people had about CAD was the miscarriage story line, not just because it was randomly depressing and out of place but because it was just poorly written.
So how does he decide to end his 'story'? With another serious arc, death, and depression. That's... great Tim. Just amazing.
So, at least some good will come out of this - the main comic will now be about gags and jokes. No more serious attempts at story. For anyone who had any interest in the other characters though I feel like the 'resolution' we've been handed so far is a mess.
A few years ago Spider-Man did a reboot in which Loki just randomly undid a bunch of stuff and the resolution was essentially, "Hey, some stuff is different and some is the same. Keep reading to figure out what the hell happened". If I recall correctly it was one of the most hated story arcs of all time when it was finalized. And Tim is doing the exact same thing (though on a much smaller, less interesting scale).
I'm sure the comic will continue to thrive, and the main comic should actually improve from here, but I feel that in a lot of ways this is in spite of his attempts at storytelling, not because of them.
... , I did actually grow to like them and the various storylines.
I am so sorry to hear that.
I have no feelings one way or another on the storyline ending. I am as apathetic toward it as I had been prior to the controversy, and I have no opinion one way or another on Buckley's gag comics.
However, I am extremely disappointed that Tim Buckley is still producing things and getting money from that website. I hope to hear it shuts down shortly afterward, but I'm too cynical to do more than wish for a better tomorrow.
Doing a "happily ever after" ending just didn't feel right for the comic strip... it didn't feel right for Ethan, as much as I wanted it to. Ethan has spent the last ten years doing incredibly stupid and dangerous things, with very little consequence. The end of him had to be, ultimately, a result of his own doing. And this was the grandest way possible I could think for that to happen.
For the most part CAD itself is harmless and bland, and you shouldn't feel bad for liking it. Most of the vitriol directed at it is because Tim Buckley is by all accounts a pretty terrible person.
Despite being mostly harmless however, the comic has had some pretty serious problems in the past including racism and sexism, even ignoring meta-issues like plagiarized character designs.
I think the comic could have had a better ending than this. Stupid and irritating though the characters could be at times, I did actually grow to like them and the various storylines.
"Existence ends, everyone dies" is a crap way to say goodbye to characters that people have been following for years. =/
In fairness I think Ethan successfully shut down the machine, saving both timelines. I kind of liked the ending, but I wasn't a regular reader. I stopped reading a while after the miscarriage arc, not because I had a problem with it, but because the strip finally stopped being amusing. But I regularly checked back to see if there was anything interesting going on, so I read the Scott/Penguin arc and this last one. I kinda wished there was more Space Archaeologist stuff, but whatever.
Not really a fan of his gamer characters, but we'll see how the new incarnation goes I guess.
'Here lies a
wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked
caitiffs left!
Here lie I, Tim; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay
not here thy gait.'
This is pretty much the best possible response. Tim Buckley of Assens is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.
That's half the point, if you read the essay. Now that Ethan+Lucas are retired, he can go back to using the Players for gaming jokes (that E+L were soaking up) instead of the random gory violence that had become their niche.
Anyway, I'm with the casual minor majority (can't be bothered to count). It was a decent to mediocre webcomic, enough to keep me following but not upset if one was missed, and since I never interacted with the creator, his character or lack thereof isn't an issue (and really, if the comic deserved the sheer volume of its haterate, there'd be more material to snark than the miscarriage arc).
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Originally Posted by GungHo, on Battletech
The Atlas is also goofy but it has that whole "Stay Puft Marshmallow Man" menacing smile thing going for it. The guy who drew that one up was obviously taken to the Nutcracker when he was a child... and he was screaming in terror the entire time.
Spoiler
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Originally Posted by Enterti, Cogidubnus
Glyphstone, out of all the playground I think you scare me the most...
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Originally Posted by Zombimode
Glyphstone, you are an evil person :D
Last edited by The Glyphstone : 11-23-2012 at 07:15 PM.
I love CAD. It and 8bit Theatre and Bob and George were my first webcomics, and I've been reading CAD regularly since , maybe year 2? My wife and I found out we both read it while dating, and in fact told people we met on their forums and found out we were local to each other (it was actually a more adult related group we met through, people don't need to know that about our personal lives)
I thought that many of his "story" story lines, including the miscarriage one, were very realistic. He brought real world scenarios, and let his characters react to him. The writing is relevant and thought provoking. I do miss the gag a day format, so part of me looks forward to the Players coming to the fore, but I will be more interested in the issue comics with the main group and storylines.
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The end of Ctrl-Alt-Del
