21-04-09 Nerf ball

[MelancholyBliss]

So a girl's breast doesn't feel like Nerf ball

If I really thought I was dreaming I would have grabbed a feel too... I hate to admit it

[#1ZiiFan]

So a girl's breast doesn't feel like Nerf ball

Hmmm...makes me remember a long time ago when I did look like Gary and unintentionally grabbing my friend Wendy's boobs in front of all our friends. Our friends Kim and Tonia were horrified and realized after a long weekend, that my grabbing was not intentional. Now that I look back at it, those were the nicest "nerf balls" I had ever felt up to that point.

Even though I would have rather grabbed Kim's in hindsight if I had ever been given the chance, which for the record, I never was given such. Kim was my Zii back then.

[Tenjen]

Gary has actually felt breasts before. I remember when he was holding Zii up he accidently cupped her [she seemed to notice]. He was distracted and didnt realise. Plus ya, Zii's cup size, you would have thought it, iam just launching a pre emptive strike.

[chelonianmobile]

Y'know, I really fail to see how anyone thinks this comic is significantly worse than anything we've seen so far, which has included;

* Matt and Dillon having sex on Gary's personal possessions and apparently having planned not to tell him until he walked in on them.
* Gary and Zii plotting to take photos of DiDi in the shower.
* Zii groping DiDi, who, while conscious, seemed to be completely unaware that Zii might have a sexual reason for doing so.
* Zii attempting to remove Gary's shirt in public despite his protests and encouraging Dillon to join in.
* Zii sticking Gary's face in her chest with the premeditated reason of rendering him unconscious.
* Dillon's collection of dirty pictures of "miscellaneous guys who didn't notice me following them around with a camera".
* Junghan effectively forcing Zii on penalty of firing to wear an embarrassing and revealing outfit which he didn't warn her about before he hired her.
* Yuki aggressively demanding that Zii have sex with her "on top of your unconscious roomie" which Zii clearly did not want to do.

And so on. Any one of these would be grounds for arrest in the real world, but THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD. Normal rules can be suspended in the name of comedy. And if you think this is offensive, go look up Something Positive some time.

It occurs to me that I would probably loathe any one of these characters if I met them in real life. Gary apparently has even fewer social skills than I do, Zii is a liar, and DiDi is either infuriatingly oblivious to everything around her or a Machiavellian-level manipulator. Since this is not real life, however, they're a lot of fun to read about.

[Radbaron]

Someone finally got it right!

*MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!!*

[BillionSix]

Y'know, I think the problem is the nature and theme of the strip itself. It wants to be a "wacky, screwball sexual comedy" in the manga style. So it tries to be funny. Constantly. Incessantly.
Gary is lame, pathetic, and desperate. In every panel. Zii is sexually forward and inappropriate. In every panel. Didi is innocent, clueless and dim. In every panel.
This is fine in the early parts of the strip, when the characters are getting introduced, but as it goes on, you run the risk of shallow, one-note characters.
I wouldn't mind if the pace slowed down a bit. Let the characters get into storylines where they can actually, you know, develop.

Just sayin',

Brian

[Bear]

Dude... stop being such a troll and actualy bother to read the comic from the start and you'll see how wrong you are.

For a start, not even a period of 2 weeks has past yet in comic time despite it having run for nearly a year now... its hard to cram comedy and characters developement into that kind of period and Giz has done a brilliant job of doing so. Saying it needs to slow down when it comics time its going on at a snails pace? Seriously... WTF? And as for saying the characters are like that in every panel... You've defiantely not read every strip to see how they've changed and developed over time, even within the short space of comic time.

Seriously... your just comming accross as complaining for the sake of complaining. Let things run their course and open your eyes for once.

[Daremo]

Development is over rated. Wacky screwball sex comedy is king.

[Don Alexander]

Full ACK.

Do I read this for serious, deep character development? No!

BillionSix, I might actually ask you: Why do you even read it? I've seen a bunch of webcomics I did not like. I dipped into them, then withdrew... I did not read a year's worth hoping they would somehow get better...

And kudos to chelonianmobile, brilliant first post!

The whole comic is meant to be a sexual comedy of errors, with characters who are more extreme than most RL people ever could be.

[Asaryu]

So...the sensible consensus is: whingefest.

[Flower-hime]

You know what? I don't like Gary.

There. I said it. I don't like him.

I want to. He's supposed to be the underdog that we all root for. But really? He's everything I have spent my life trying not to be.
And he keeps getting worse. He probably thinks of himself as a Nice Guy™ who would deserves to get laid. He's not. He's a spineless, weak-willed loser with few morals to speak of.
Today's strip was not a Three's Company type misunderstanding where he appears to be groping an unconscious girl and someone misunderstands.
The woman who screamed that he is a pervert was absolutely correct. He was sitting on the ground, happily fondling a girl's breast. Not a willing girl. An unconscious one. And of course, he came up with some bullshit "dream test" rationalization to justify it to himself, so he could still think of himself as a Nice Guy™.
And here I thought he had topped himself a few strips back when he was aroused by a sobbing woman.

I like Zii because, for all her craziness, she at least is confident and ballsy. Didi is fun beyond the "eye candy" aspect, due to her innocence and cluelessness. But Gary? A sad, desperate loser, who does nothing but wallow in his own horny loneliness, and will abandon any ethics he pretended to have just to touch a helpless girl.

Brian

Brian

Thank you so much for saying what I didn't have the guts to say.

Yeah, Gary can go to hell in my opinion. Molesting an unconscious girl = NOT COOL.

Seconded. Actually, I registered pretty much just to agree with this. I tried to like Gary, really I did. I kept telling myself he would redeem himself somehow, or do something to make himself likeable, but... this is just gross. Honestly, if he's always acted that way around women, it's really no wonder he's still a virgin.

And honestly, I'm not expecting brilliant, deep character development. I am expecting that people not make jokes about molestation, especially since there are a lot of guys like Gary out there who are going to read this and feel like it justifies their worldview. No, I'm not saying they're going to go out and grope some girl now just because they read this webcomic; but they are going to feel like someone out there agrees with their messed up assessments of women as primarily good for being sex objects. For me, "A joke is just a joke!" loses some of its credibility when there are people out there who actually think that way, and will use "I was just joking!" as an excuse not to get called on the crappy things they do/say.

And all that aside, isn't somebody allowed to just dislike a character? I know a lot of people dislike Zii (and I find that understandable; I like her, but I can see how her Karma Houdini-ing would get on people's nerves, and her groping Gary's ass while he was sleeping made me extremely uncomfortable) but as far as I know, people don't go off on them for it, although it's possible they have and I missed it, because I'm only a lurker, in which case, i retract my statement. But if my perception is right, then why is disliking Gary or wanting him to get his comeuppance any different than disliking Zii or wanting her to get her comeuppance? As far as I can tell, they both have qualities that could understandably get on people's nerves and both do things that could be considered unethical and bother readers of the comic.

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to get so long. BillionSix, thanks for saying something, because I wouldn't have had the guts to if you hadn't.

[Kamino Neko]

I am expecting that people not make jokes about molestation

And, yet you like Zii who actually DOES molest people (Gary and Didi) - Gary's a dumbass (not a molester, though his dumbassness sometimes gets him into situations - like the last couple strips - where the only difference is motivation), Zii's a predator. Gary's one case of actually, intentionally, doing something wrong was asking Zii to take a picture of DiDi in the shower - and he realized that was a bad thing and had her delete them before looking. (Zii, on the other hand, has no twinge of conscience for doing that, or groping her in the process.)

And Gary's suffered consequences for a combination of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being a dumbass, whereas Zii hasn't yet faced real consequences for being an actual sexual predator - the worst she's had was getting to watch Dillon and Gary oil Matt up, but not being allowed to join in or take pictures - not exactly a major punishment - and that was for getting Gary and Dillon in trouble with DiDi (while burying her face in her boobs, and grabbing her ass), not for any of the times she's groped Gary or DiDi, or peeped on them, plotted to get into bed with them, or...

[JerrBear]

You know you've made it in the webcomic world when people start discussions that produce counter-arguments! Congrats Dave and Giz!

[Daremo]

I have to wonder if people hate Moe for bopping Larry and Curly as well. Seems about the same level to me.

[Flower-hime]

I am expecting that people not make jokes about molestation

And, yet you like Zii who actually DOES molest people

Honestly, I haven't met anyone who acts like Zii in real life. I have met a lot of guys who act and think very, very similarly to Gary. When I first started reading this comic, I felt bad for him, but more and more I'm left with the impression he has serious issues with women.

That being said, I think you have a point that a lot of Zii's behavior is shitty in ways I hadn't initially realized, partly because she's a girl (and I know that's bad of me; I'm trying to get better at being more egalitarian in how I interpret gender behavior) and partly because she's at least confident, which does make it seem less creepy somehow. However, that doesn't really make me like Gary any more. It just makes me like Zii a lot less. Also, I'm sorry if I came off like saying that people shouldn't criticise Zii, because actually, I think a lot of things she does are SHITTY and people should criticise her for them. I just haven't noticed the same animousity for people who do as people who criticise Gary. I could have missed it, though, like I said.

@ Teacher2B: I see what you're saying, but at the same time, I think everyone is allowed to have certain character types they just don't like. And Gary is starting to fit into a type that I just don't like, more and more. That doesn't mean nobody else is allowed to like him, but he still creeps me out.

@ Daremo: I think the difference, for me, is that I don't know anyone who thinks it's actually okay to bop your friends like Moe does. I know several guys who think feeling up an unconscious girl is totally acceptable and she's a bitch/just looking for attention/stupid for passing out around a guy in the first place if she objects.