Featured Webcomic: June - Questionable Content

[Kristen]

Discuss Questionable Content here!

Questionable Content (or "QC," as it is frequently abbreviated) is an online comic strip that is ostensibly about romance, indie rock, little robots, and the problems people have.

[Mike]

This'll be interesting. Going to try going back to the beginning. QC is one of my favorite comics (although I'll admit to getting bored in the early-mid 1000s and skipping a lot) and I enjoyed the start alot the first time through, but the art has improved dramatically over the years so I imagine it's going to be jarring now to look at the early stuff.

We'll see...

[Kristen]

I don't think I can read this again. Besides the fact that it's ridiculously long, I'm just not into QC anymore. It was my first webcomic and I really liked it up until recently. I officially stopped reading it a few weeks ago. After (view spoiler)[Dora and Martin's relationship (hide spoiler)] ended, the storyline went downhill for me. Now with all of the stuff with (view spoiler)[Claire (hide spoiler)], I feel more and more like Jeph is pandering to the people of the internet. Plus, I hate Pintsize. I have always hated Pintsize and I always will.

[Mike]

I actually stopped reading at your first spoiler point and skipped ahead several hundred strips to continue. I've enjoyed more recent things, particularly (view spoiler)[the pool party, the wedding, and Emily in general (who makes up for Raven's much missed absence) (hide spoiler)], but yeah, it is veering off again.

Definitely won't be rereading it all (doubt I'll get even 100 strips in honestly) but I'm curious to see how much I'll like the early stuff knowing what's coming / how the comic will evolve.

[jenny]

I read up to #50. I feel I'm definitely in the minority after reading the reviews, but I just couldn't identify with the characters.

[Kristen]

Jennifer wrote: "I read up to #50. I feel I'm definitely in the minority after reading the reviews, but I just couldn't identify with the characters."

I identify with the characters because I'm a college student, but I can see where a lot of people might not. They can come off as indie or hipsters. Personally, I don't get 99% of the music references. It can be hard to identify with them when they are constantly referring to things that I know nothing about.

[Mike]

I think I warmed to the characters much later on as the comic found it's way a little more and Dora, Raven and later Hannelore became bigger parts. The humor kept me interested long enough to get there and I always liked Martin, but the stretches with just him Steve and Faye didn't do a lot to make me care about the cast in general.

And I was right - trying to start over isn't working. Going to skip 300 or so strips and try again some other time.

[Kayleigh]

It's funny, I've actually re-read the early strips a couple of times since I first discovered the comic a couple of years ago, so the early art doesn't bother me much--I think I've gotten used to the transition.
QC was my first webcomic and is still one of my favorites. Though there are parts of the storyline that I enjoyed more than others, I never felt a strong dislike for anything in particular. The ending of (view spoiler)[Marten and Dora's relationship was very sad for me, and it has made the group dynamic a bit awkward, but I think Jeph handled it in a very human, realistic way (hide spoiler)]. So while it was upsetting, it wasn't enough to make me stop reading. I was also really curious to see where the story would go afterwards, so I kept at it. But then I'm the kind of person who hates missing anything in a serialized story--skipping would have driven me crazy.
As for the (view spoiler)[ Claire thing, I don't think he's pandering at all. Back when she first "came out" to Marten, Jeph stated that he's been wanting to include a trans character in the comic for a long time (I can't remember the reasons, and I don't want to go searching for the post right now, but it wasn't to satisfy an internet trend), but only recently felt he could do so without incurring massive amounts of rage and hate mail. Honestly, I've enjoyed learning more about her character and very interested in seeing where he's going with it (hide spoiler)].
One of the things I've always loved about this comic is that even though I couldn't really identify with most of the characters (about some things, anyway. There are aspects of their lives and personalities that I find very relatable), I still cared about them. I can definitely see how they might be off-putting, though.

[Mike]

I recently caught up again. While Marigold's corner of the QC universe and her rivalry with Dale aren't favorites of mine, Dale's current (last couple weeks) story with the beta virtual companion with attitude problems is really amusing me.