A thread where Ms. Mowz (and sometimes One Too Many) mock VG Cats

Since Scott announced that he was officially done with this series, I feel that me and @One Too Many should have an entire thread dedicated to mocking the gamer web comic VG Cats. Because even though Ctrl/Alt/Del is far more infamous, VG Cats is actually quite bad in it's own right, in ways even similar to the web comic that spawned Loss. And yet, a lot of people seem to have overlook this as a bad webcomic, with the only real notable online mockery out there being the Bad Webcomics Wiki and a couple of offhand remarks, and this is something we need to remedy. So here it is, VG Cats

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 1

Nothing really offensively awful so far, just really lame "relatable" gamer "humor" like "ISN'T CARRYING POKEMAN IN BALLS THE CRUELEST THING EVER" and "WHAT IF VIDYA PLAYED ANOTHER VIDYA", but it does get worse.
(Also, "bruh" at comparing Hit man to Superman 64. No real comments I can make about the Counter-Strike ones, other than that their generic online gaming jokes that were never all that funny to begin with.

 

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 2

I hate to admit this, but I did get a small chuckle out of these two (just a small chuckle; not a full on burst of laughter). Maybe I just ended up getting the worst ones...

...Okay, forget I said that, because he immediately followed it up with a strip whining about The Wind Waker's art style. Before the game was even released. And considering how many people treat that game as some sort of sacred cow nowadays (often to obnoxious degrees), and this already unfunny joke is now even less funny.

Punchline: Grey cat idiot. Wants to see animal explode. Also Starcraft because vidya references FTW/s

I don't even know what, if any, game this is suppose to be a "spoof" of. Just looks like Scott just ripped off Monty Python and made the joke less funny like every other "geeky" comedian hack.
CARD GAMES SUCK LOL! The only funny thing about this is how Scott would make two comic strips that are just "FIGHTING GAMES SUCK LOL!".

 

The drawing style seems to make it "harder to read" somehow.

Like reading expressions or following along isn't as easy with the way the artist draws.

(still much better than "Sonichu" though)

 

Oh there's a Wikipedia article on VG cats:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_Cats

"Personal reasons" and drawings nudes is a great juxtaposition; what can I say, Scott's a busy man.

Damn, two comics a month at it's peak, some of these are only one panel! Even Chris had a better work ethic.

Well to be fair I'd distance myself from this comic too if I created it, then again if you made VG cats you're already in too deep.

Not a great start

The rest of the article is pretty barren, which isn't saying much given the subject, if you were wondering what the NSFW art was like before it was deleted, which you really ought not to, there's a twitter that's archived it, I trust you can find it on your own you dirty fucker.

Let's check the talk page...


Well shit, it's longer then the article itself, that's not a good sign. I'll delve into it in another post, WP talk pages are always gold mines.



lol

 

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 3

Punchline: LOL GOD GAMES LET YOU BE DICKS LOLOLOLOL
Guys, what if trick or treater dressed as Duke Nukem killed a man with guns because he was in character? Wouldn't that be funny? (NO)
Xbox bad. Nintendo good.
Fun Fact: the title of this one is "Dr. Evil", which means that Scott straight up admitted to stealing an Austin Powers joke, then making it less funny through the """original""" hot take "IGN BAD".
"You know what Luigi's Mansion needs? A sexy cat ghost girl that I can suck off her panties!" - most likely Scott when he made this.

Guys, what if the Rogue Squadron was just a bunch of stingy incompetent idiots? Comedy gold!/s

 

You know what, I think @c-no, @Congratulations, and @Wordsworth (when/if he comes back) would love to join us in mocking this unfunny gamer humor.
("Love" is probably not the right word here...)

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 4

I could only barely understand that this is making fun of a tech support company (though admittedly only due to Scott putting the words "tech support" on that phone desk thingy), but the background featuring the logo of whatever company he's mad at (I think?) is so goddamn blurry that I can't even properly make it out, and the "satire" (ie, "THESE PEOPLE DUMB PEOPLE") doesn't give me any clues.
LOL MICROSOFT BAD. ME MAKE COMIC KILLING BILL GATES. DEFINITELY WON'T GIVE JACK THOMPSON AMMO FOR GAMERS BEING VIOLENT FUCKWITS.

Is this supposed to be a Postal comic? If so, I think Scott may have missed the memo that Postal is supposed to be over the top in its offensiveness as comedy and satire. Just pointing out that trying to make satire out of satire rarely, if ever, works out.
Hey look, three of the four characters in this eventually made it to Smash Bros, anyways. And a Kid Icarus game was released in 2012. And Duke Nukem Forever finally got released in 2011 (even if the game is a piece of shit). And Pac-Man was still getting new games when this comic came out (plus, Pac-Man is more of a legacy mascot character for Namco, anyways; just their equivalent to Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny). It's almost as if comics like this are just destined to age like milk (not that they were ever funny to begin with, TBH.)

Oh, wow. Now Scott is making fun of another webcomic. What a completely novel concept that hasn't been done (especially not by Ctrl Alt Del, which VG Cats is totally not like at all, am I right?)

I just want you guys to look at the last panel in this and think about the fact that an actual human drew this. I know it's extremely painful to look at, but you must look at it regardless.

 

I recalled reading some of these webcomics for it way back then but I don't even remember being that laughably bad.

 

So with the lower rate VG Cats was updated, there's not that many comics?

 

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 5

Oh dear God, it's Arin "soulless hack" Hansen's hot take of "DANTE IS A GAY EMO CRYBABY" all over again. I have to wonder if these people even played Devil May Cry.

Already shown this one in the Desert Bus Shitposting thread, and I still stand by my point: the cardboard box thing has been treated as a joke in-universe since the very first Metal Gear game (not first Metal Gear Solid, FYI; I mean the very first one that was on the MSX). Trying to make a joke out of something that's already a joke to begin with usually ends up being just a less funny version of said joke.
It's like Scotty boy just lost in a fighting game by a button masher, and just decided that fighting games are nothing but "BUTTON MASH TO WIN" to cope.
Not much interesting in this strip that's just "cats are cute fuzzy alien friends" (they are, but that doesn't make this funny), but Scott finally revealed the names of his two dumb characters. Fun fact: he named them after his two cats. Ignore the fact that he named his cats after Final Fantasy characters (because "VIDEO GAMES REFERENCE EPIC FOR THE WIN"), and just remember the fact that he frequently sexualizes the female both cats named after his pets.
Hey, guys, what if zombies actually have feelings, except they don't, and they just pretend to have feelings to take a bite out of potential unsuspecting victims? Isn't that funny? Hey guys? Guy? Am I losing you?
That's a lot of words just to say "LOL TEXTING SUCKS!" FYI, text messages can be pretty useful for contacting friends and family when they don't time at the moment to make any calls. Sure, sometimes they see it too late, but no system is perfect.

 

The ones Fauna Fox is posting now are from 2002.

 

Geez, I read a lot of shitty webcomics back in the day, but for some reason I have never heard of this one. Looks bad and comes off as that lulsonerdy type stuff that real nerds despise

 

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 6

Like the cardboard box, slipping on pigeon poop in MGS2 was already meant to be a joke in the first place, so there was no need to ever "spoof" this in the first place. Does Scott actually think Metal Gear is an ultra serious action series with no intentional humor in it?

Guys, what if instead of Dynasty Warriors, it was Dynasty Lawyers? Eh? EH?! Laugh, dammit!
Referencing the Eternal Darkness sanity effects as an April Fools prank, but in all honesty, the only people that would go insane from the end of VG Cats would be r/gaming users or furries. Or both.
This is how Scott responds to criticism towards his uploading schedule: by making a comic inserting himself as a superhero telling his fans to fuck off. He does this many more times, BTW.
Apparently this is a guest comic for I guess another unfunny webcomic? Whatever, moving on.
No, Scott, no matter how annoying they are, you don't get to talk shit about Nintendo fanboys. Not after making two comics with the punchline of "XBOX BAD. NINTENDO GOOD."

 

The messed up part of VG Cats is that it was actually popular, not just having a high enough web traffic ranking to be statistically the third most popular web comic. It actually won two web media related awards, in addition to several nominations: all of which were voter-based, meaning it was actually popular among netizens and not just notorious like Ctrl Alt Del. Just for more proof, go to any site like DeviantArt and Fanfiction, and you will find plenty of unironic fan works that are not just taking the piss out of it. Hell, it was so popular, that apparently Square-Enix actually hired Scott to make an official Final Fantasy XI webcomic series.

And this is the best the comic itself has to offer. Just think about that for a minute.

Spoiler

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I was actually one of those fans when I was a kid and early teen. It was only when Scott made a particularly bad rant comic that was (allegedly) a parody of The Colbert Report that I just stopped reading. Years go by, and after the backlash of gamer culture in full swing (at least partially due to Reddit and, more specifically, r/gaming), that I actually decided to look back at this series. That's when I realized it was always bad, and I was just a stupid kid.

 

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 7

XBOX GOOD. NINTENDO BETTER. XBOX IS HERESAY. BUT XBOX GOOD. BUT XBOX BOUGHT RARE. NOW XBOX BAD. BUT NINTENDO ALSO BAD. BUT NINTENDO ALSO GOOD. ME NOT FANBOY. UGH!

With this one, I'm just ignoring the lame "ISN'T THIS THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE GAME SO WEIRD XD" "humor", and I just want to point out that Scott made the pink cat (who's named after one of his pet cats, as a reminder) cosplay as Krystal, pretty much the most (in)famous furry waifu in existence. "I'M TOTALLY NOT A FURRY!" - Scott, in the furry closet.

Punchline: "LOL RANDOM NEWS REPORT! NINJAS ARE AWESOME, AM I RIGHT! DON'T YOU JUST LOVE CATS?! PLEASE LAUGH!"
Hey, guys, ever thought about how Metroid's Ice Beam could kill someone?! What do you mean I'm just making a set-up for a lame joke revolving vidya mechanic?!

HEY, GUYS! ISN'T NAVI TOTES ANNOYING!?
Jesus Christ, It's like this was written by an r/gaming user before Reddit was even a thing.

 

This is the point in the comic where the art actually sees some notable improvement. Unfortunately, this is also the moment where Scott starts to become more reliant on gross, violent, and perverted shit. So yeah, believe it or not, the last ones I post could be considered the good ones.

Spoiler: VG Cats, part 8

Just a generic Christmas strip featuring that dumb red demon. Not even worth riffing.

This appears to be a guest comic by somebody that isn't Scott. I have to say, congrats on replicating his style of "comedy" (ie, unfunny, derivative, and boring)

Mama Mia! Thwomp has hemmoroids! Isn't that funny and totally not disgusting?!
LOL TEAMMATE IS KILLING OTHER TEAMMATES LOL

Look, I don't care if a guy's testicles is actually canon to Baldur's Gate, having some back alley creep eating eating said testicles and giving away more testicles in a bag he calls a nutsack is really not funny, just gross.
LOL METAL GEAR RAPE LOL

 

The best part of VG Cats is Scott insisting he isn't a furry.

I think the success of Penny Arcade might be responsible for a lot of these gamer web comics, it set the bar really low, which isn't necessary a bad thing but so many comics just existed as shallow imitations of an already pretty turgid series. Ctrl+Alt+Del, VG Cats, anything by Ryan Sohmer, and about a hundred other web comics are all structured like PA, look like PA, have the same "humor" as PA, and just about the same effort as PA which is not a lot. In saying this, I really shouldn't be so negative about all these comics being the same, they've brought happiness to many and made whole careers for some, if you can make something you care about and have the courage to put it online, that alone is honestly pretty commendable; the way I see it, making fun of a web comic is just appreciating it in a different context, there's a fine line between poking fun at something and being mean spirited and we all tread that when we come here. The thing I take issue with in web comics, however, is when an author is an asshole or a creep and their web comics have truly horrible stuff in them, then I feel pretty justified in calling them out for it.

 

BTW, @One Too Many, I would like you to post some of the comic strips during the weekends. I try to go for 4 posts with 6 strips per day, but I'll let you decide your own schedule for this (although I would prefer it if you go the 6 strips per post route for consistency). I'll even provide a link to the first strip you can post.
https://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=49
(P.S.: I do agree with you on the fine line part. However, I do think Scott deserves some scrutiny for his behaviour towards his fans over his poor uploading work ethic, some particularly mean-spirited and unpleasant strips (the Splatoon one using Iwata's death as a cheap punchline probably being the worst), and the whole VG Lewds incident.)