Too far?

[Black Sparrow]

I think the "lol topical" at the end is in bad taste... but it definitely doesn't cross the line. If people don't like it, they can just bugger off and find a comic full of fluffy kittens and rainbows.

Listen to That guy; he has good advice, as usual.

[Yeahduff]

There's definitely a line. It's blurry and it moves, but it's definitely there. Be funny and people will care less if you cross it.

[Sketchywallflowr]

I don't think there is a line, and if there is we should all use it to floss our teeth. Once one thing becomes too sacred to make fun of, then everything is too sacred and you can't make fun of anything. I know a girl who had an abortion and it ruined her life and completely changed her, and it made me really sad when it happened.

But I still laugh like hell at abortion jokes.

[Doombug]

I suppose there's probably a line out there.
But if there is, it's probably a few miles wide, else every decent idea of the past century could be judged satanic. World revolving around the sun, brain surgery, all that jazz.
You'd know if you'd crossed the border.
...
Anyways, everyone else here seems to have good advice, so listen to them.

[Axonite]

"In Soviet Russia, line crosses YOU!"

[The Neko]

I was more offended by how totally unfunny it was.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

That didn't even come close to the line. It got stuck in traffic on the way to the race. If you think about how many people use the internet, someone somewhere will find even the smallest thing offensive.

Oh yeah, Street Fighter was on TV the other day. What a great camp classic.

[Noise Monkey]

Ernest goes to camp...camp classic


possibly a different type of camp.

[Scotty-Dunn]

Thanks all for the into. Yeah, what am I worried about, that's nothing compared to some of the shit on the net, heh...

btw, on the topic of my cartoon, I'm waiting on a graphic tablet due to come in the mail in the next week or two... damn ebay shipping... always takes so long... and also... well... they all can't be funny, besides, I have to stick to this arc for just a bit longer...

[Dutch!]

Remember though, don't make excuses for your writing if it's going in the direction you think it needs to.

[Jackhass]

By Internet standards that wasn't particularly controversial.

If you just threw that joke into the middle of a comic that's usually g-rated and family friendly though, I could see how it might stick out. If I used the word "damn" in one of my comics it would probably be noticeable.

[Dutch!]

Damn? You're kidding me?

[Yeahduff]

If they said damn on Sesame Street, it'd be a big deal. It's all context, and this is part of where the fuzzy moving line I was talking about comes from.

[Uncaringmachine]

Meh. I thought it was funny enough without the Alternate ending, but either works for me. You didn't go too far. Too far would have been if you had an actual picture of her injecting some roids. THEN....nah, still not too far.

[Noise Monkey]

no. but probably not terribly funny, either.

[Stinkywigfiddle]

So I guess this is my question for you guys: Where you draw the line? What's not cool to joke about really?

It depends on how the joke is done and who your audience is.

[Chelsee]

Agreed with the rest of the crowd - I wouldn't find it offensive but if someone else does, they got on the internet of their own free will. In a world where porn will just pop up randomly (like randomly finding a $20 in the wash ^_^), they knew the horrible, horrible risks when they opened the browser.

If anything, if you offended some people, you know you did something right! It's certainly in the "shock value" family of jokes, including sexist and dead baby jokes... but in that case, if you dropped a few mouths, be happy! You got your DESIRED effect.

[McDuffies]

Not long after I started reading webcomics, I read entire archives of "Sexy Losers" and "Jack". After those two, did anyone really expect that I'd be offended by something?
Well, yes I was. I was regularly offended by how stupid, boring, unimaginative comics could be. Sexy Losers was funny from top to bottom and Jack, though not my brand of storytelling, had something to say, was going somewhere with it's offensive material. I was constantly disturbed by people who were shocking for the sake of shocking. Every troubled teenager who went into webcomics and thought that he should be edgy, lied same old jokes about dead babies and rapes, and I was always shocked by how little taste people can have and by how inconsiderate they may be about issues that they don't have a clue about. Yes you can make a good joke about dead babies. For that, you have to know something about dead babies. Your comic should be funny because it's truthful, not because it's stupid.
There's a line and it's everywhere and nowhere. The way you deal with issue defines whether the comic is in good taste, whether you crossed the line, whether it all has purpose or it's just exercise in futility. By being funny you can excuse just about any topic.
But being edgy and shocking is an old thing anyway. Clean comics that manage to gain interest without retreating to excess, now that's a sight worth seeing.

[Zwuh]

lol ded babehs.

[Princess]

My dad told me my first dead baby joke when I was six, and I've never looked back.