{ ... }


So, Andrew Hussie, the famed creator of MS Paint Adventures, decided to parody a poorly-drawn comic on the Penny Arcade forum by producing his own low-quality creation, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. It's ... kind of awesome, in its own way, once you know that all the badness is intentional. It certainly seems to have wider appeal than MS Paint Adventures itself.

The thing is, whatever else you have to say about him, Andrew Hussie actually does have genuine artistic skills. So here is the central thesis of Summernight Dreamed: If you think that Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff looks shitty now, imagine what it would look like if it was drawn by someone who can't draw!

Of course, I don't want to just make a repeat of SBaHJ (though I've done that too), so instead of making an ironically-bad webcomic inspired by a genuinely-bad comic inspired by Penny Arcade, I'm making an ironically-bad webcomic inspired by (as the name implies) A Midsummer Night's Dream. Because, y'know, anyone can make a terrible webcomic based on two gamer-guys sitting on a couch, but it takes a bit more effort to make a terrible webcomic based on Shakespeare.

The badness in this comic is not pure accident (i.e. "predicated on my complete inability to draw, despite doing my best"). I have a specific system with which I am constructing the whole to be worse than the sum of its parts, as well as using my storytelling abilities for evil rather than for good. Ultimately, I am putting more effort into making it bad than I would have put into "doing my best."

So if we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended: that this comic took some skill to bring itself not good, but ill. (Or whatever.)


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