#tangerine sinfest

[star-the-honeybun]

anyways i love pissing on trampolines

[skyhighchibi]

sinfest /neg

Tangerine /pos

[kinblog-of-the-joint-variety]

God to any sinfest kinnies or fictives I'm so sorry

[thewebcomicsreview]

The more tidbits you reveal from Sinfest the more I start to wonder if this is a real comic

So, I was reading today’s Sinfest, and I had a random thought:

“What’s up with Tangerine’s tail? It looks like it’s part of her hoodie, which is probably artistic license, but why it it a cat tail?”. The actual answer to the question wasn’t very interesting, but check something out I noticed while looking it up:

On March 11th, 2011, Satan turned a random girl into a succubus for no apparent reason beyond “he’s Satan”, which is good enough because back then Sinfest was a gag-a-day strip with no plot as opposed to now where it’s a plot-heavy allegorical epic.

Slick and Monique tried to change her back, but failed in what would actually be the last time those two characters were on the same side.

In April, a gag storyline establishes the River Lethe, which erases people’s memories. 

Seymour tries to baptize Tange (who will not be named for three fucking years but that’s neither here nor there)

Which of course mindwipes her, and gives her a much more childish and mildly less feral personality. 

She spends a few months occasionally appearing to learn things about the world and her powers

Then we get a gag strip reminding us what the Lethe does and how it works.

Which becomes relevant a week later when Lil’ E unknowingly splashes himself with the Lethe water and erases his own memories. Lil E has been a relatively major character for years, so this is a major (and permanent!) change to the comic’s status quo.

Tangerine, who was hanging out in the area and learning about shoes, bumps into Lil’ E, and they bond over their shared ignorance. 

Over in the other plotlines, Fuchsia learns that her secret dates with Criminy are less secret than she thought.

The day after that, Xanthe and the Sisterhood are introduced.

Monique doesn’t join them, but he’s radically influenced by them in another major (and permanent!) change to the status quo for a main character. She changes her hair and becomes a radfem.

The very next strip is a joke about trans people, which from the perspective of living in 2020 and knowing where this went is obviously pretty yikes, but wasn’t thought of as a big thing at the time. 

There’s one of these strips, with Monique, Tangerine, Lil’ E, and Monique reflecting on how much they’ve changed over this year’s worth of strips. Although, even though Lil’ E is one of the four characters to radically change, he’s not actually in this strip, with his spot inexplicably given to Xanthe, a character who was literally just introduced. 

We don’t have time to unpack all that, because Fuchsia has realized that she has to choose between Criminy and her job, and she chooses love in another major (and permanent!) change to the status quo for a main character.

Blue is devastated by this, but covers for Fuchsia by blaming the Sisterhood for Fuchsia leaving. This, not patriarchy, is the actual canonical reason Satan is opposed to the Sisterhood, who he didn’t care about before. 

The New Year’s 2012 arc happens. I call it an arc, but it’s one page. 

Then, in April 2012, Tangerine is cold and gets a hoodie. This hoodie has a tail sleeve, which answers my original question in a boring and anticlimatic way (warned you): Tange’s tail looks like part of her hoodie because it actually is. (Why does Lily, who does not have a tail, have a hoodie with actually fuck it this post is too long as it is)

So, uh, what’s the point of this recap?

The point is that this is a recap of Sinfest from March 2011 to December 2011. This is less than a year’s worth of strips. Look how much shit happened! Tangerine was created and had this whole character arc of becoming less “feral monster” and more "manic pixie dream girl”. Lil’ E the hateful internet troll who secretly wanted his father’s love became Lily the philosophical amnesiac child! Monique shaved her head and became a radfem! Fuchsia quit her job to live with Criminy forever! The Sisterhood became a major force in the comic and then Satan got into a war with them! And between then and Tange getting a hoodie, Slick started re-evaluating if he was actually a douchebag, and Sleaze was created as a personification of his evil tendencies. This year had a huge amount of plot movement and character development, and shortly after it there was another big shakeup when Slick and Monique had a falling out.

And nothing has changed since.

Every single one of these characters is in exactly the same place they were in early 2012, like the Sisterhood froze the world in amber. Slick is still questioning if he’s evil without moving either way. Monique is still doing radfem poetry in front of an audience that hates it. Fuchsia and Criminy have so little to do that they basically never appear any more. Tange and Lily are in the exact same place as they were in 2011, except that they’ve physically moved to Satan’s house but even that hasn’t actually changed anything. Instead of having plot development or character development, Sinfest just introduces a robot for a while and then slowly gets bored of them, and while the 2012 new year’s story was one page, now the New Year’s storyline lasts for months, intertwined with but not actually affecting anything. The tone of the strip has gotten a lot grimdarkerer, but despite these months-long arcs, nothing fucking happens in Sinfest anymore, because the plot and the characters has been entirely subsumed into the transphobia. 

[ripsinfest]

A convoluted story versus a simple story

As per tradition, year 2018 ended with a story featuring a personification of the current year. Unsurprisingly, despite being highly inebriated, XVIII managed to easily defeat her enemy, a giant pimp robot.

Despite the damages it suffered, the robot was still functional and, due to the amount of resources they invested on it, a very valuable asset for DevilTech. They immediately dispatched some Drones to recover the remains of the giant robot. 

The Rogue Fembots also took notice of this and, knowing full well that they could use it for their own purposes, arrived for their prize.

Those strips were posted back in January 2019. It’s been a year already and there hasn’t been a single mention or even a reference of this incident. No News Channel reporting this, no reactions from the witnesses, nothing at all.

Even Seymour, who was at the scene, seems to be unaware of this. Next time we see him he’s making crispy treats for Lil’E and Tangerine.

I’m willing to bet that most readers don’t even remember this happened. I’d hardly blame them, at this point the story is so convoluted it’s easy to forget/dismiss events like this.

One of the biggest issues with the current Sinfest is the amount of storylines it has to deal with at the same time. Back in the day Ishida focused all his attention in a single storyline and concluded it satisfactorily. 

A good example is Slick’s first date:

No pointless distractions, no additional storylines, no frustrating cliffhanger, from December 24, 2001 until January 13, 2002 it was all about Slick and his date.

Another good example is Criminy’s date with Amber:

There are some strips featuring Monique and Slick discussing the possible outcome of the date, their expectations, etc. It’s actually funny to see these two argue and it doesn’t feel like a waste of time because their discussion is related to Criminy’s date.

To quote Mr. Plinkett in his Star Wars: The Phantom Menace review:

“Ironically the simplest endings of the first two movies (A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) with the least locations and events are vastly more interesting because the plot is built up to them and we can focus on the one thing.”

It’s not impossible to have multiple storylines in a comic, with good organization a competent writer can make it work, but the way Ishida is handling it is beyond awful. 

Like I mentioned at the beginning, we have the rogue Fembots with their new acquisition, Woke TV (which even to this date I don’t understand what’s the point of it), Lil’E and Tangerine at the mansion, Vainglorious preparing his personal army, Lilith’s ghost appearing at Lil’E’s house, Lil’E’s puppy getting captured and sent to the city pound, Amber offering Fuchsia an opportunity to host her own show, a zombie prostitute, the new pimp trying to capture Liberty, XIX fighting a zombie pimp... it’s just a mess.

There’s simply no way Ishida will wrap all these storylines anytime soon. He’ll probably create even more boring characters, introduce themes that won’t matter at all, write even more storylines with tons of pointless strips, you know, things you’d expect from an amateur, not a man who has been in the comic industry for more than a decade.

[unimprevisto]

#sinfest #drawing #pencildrawing #dibujos #dibujosalapiz #practica #practice #ztupidraw #ztup #ztupid #tangerine #lily #littleevil

[ripsinfest]

Sleaze (part 1)

Sleaze made his first appearance during the not so subtle transition the fans experienced back in 2012, when Ishida introduced many of the elements that would define the comic in the following years.

To be fair, those strips were actually good, felt like the old Sinfest. Too bad that, even to this date, we have to deal with the aftermath.

I fail to understand what Sleaze is supposed to be. At first sight it’s clear that he’s an evil counterpart of the former protagonist, but even to this date it’s hard to understand how this works. Right off the bat it’s established that despite their physical similarities, they’re actually different characters, which is strange considering that once a character is “BOMFED”, they turn into a devil person.

Tangerine and Seymour, for example, were bomfed by the Devil and turned into demons. The effects they suffered were quite different, Tangerine lost all her memories and gained new powers while Seymour only changed physically (grew some horns and a tail), mentally he was still the same. But when Slick gets bomfed, initially nothing happens, it’s only after he goes to sleep that the audience notices the actual effects, Slicks reflection in the mirror is different now.

Maybe the green devil girl wasn’t that strong when compared to other devil characters? Maybe the actual effect depends on the character who receives the Bomf? Yeah, let’s go with that. 

The first strip where Sleaze gets to do something is confusing, to say the least.

While Slick sleeps, Sleaze creates chaos in his world. As an audience, we’re informed two things: Slick and Sleaze are different characters, Sleaze being pure evil and having powers, and there’s a new realm in the comic.

The concept isn’t necessarily bad just because it had a confusing introduction, but its actual implementation through the years leaves a lot to be desired.

Next

[ripsinfest]

Sleaze (part 5)

Previous

Lil’E (Little Evil) was introduced back in 2002, he was Seymour’s counterpart/rival. While Seymour was a Christian fundamentalist obsessed with his religion, Lil’E idolized everything that was evil.

Just like Seymour, due to his limitations (mostly his physical attributes and the fact that he lacks any powers), he was often ignored/mocked by the rest of the characters, the only one who actually bothered to take him seriously was Seymour. There was some charm to it. Then, much to my dismay, we get this little gem:

There’s no way this can be considered a plot twist, it makes absolutely no sense. Ever since his first appearance, the Devil felt disdain towards Lil’E, he’s just an annoying kid who tries (and fails) to be evil. His physical attributes, lack of powers and innocence make him an unlikely ally. If the Devil was angry, he wouldn’t hesitate in attacking him. At the same time, Lil’E never referred to him as “Father”, or any affectionate term that would provide more insight into their relationship.

It’s a retcon, plain and simple. Ishida got tired of the character/felt that there was some room for improvement, instead of just removing him from the comic and add a new character he gave Lil’E amnesia. Now it’s revealed that he’s the Devil’s child, apparently the Devil always cared for him but for some reason never really bothered to take him under his wing, even now that Lil’E suffers from amnesia and it’s the perfect opportunity to start over.

I have to ask: was it worth it? “Remove” a well-established character from the comic and “replace” him with this? An extremely bland character who constantly needs to be protected by another character (Tangerine)? He feels like an unfortunate third party who never wanted to be in an adventure, but got dragged to it anyways. To be fair, most of the strips that feature Tangerine and Lil’E are decent, some whacky adventures featuring two mischievous kids, the only real complaint is that sometimes they drag too long. Some of the very few strips where you don’t feel the condescending feminist tones the new Sinfest is known for, but if Ishida really wanted to pair these two, he chose the absolute worst way to set them up.

I have to stress this out, we never got a single clue in those 9 years between Lil’E’s introduction and his amnesia, he never referred to his father in any sort of affectionate way that could provide additional insight, and we know the Devil disliked him, could barely tolerate his presence.

Yes, I know Ishida is “correcting” this with his backstory comics, but honestly, it feels like a poor way to justify this change, not to mention the characters have remained the same in the past 8 years since this retcon, character development is nearly non-existent, and they barely get to interact with each other anyways. What’s the point of Lil’E being the Devil’s son if Ishida is doing nothing about it? It feels like a random change that made no sense, and even to this date, I find it hard to justify it, nothing good or interesting came out of this.

Is Sleaze the result of public outcry? This is, of course, just speculation from my end, as I never really got a chance to see the fans react to Lil’E’s amnesia, but the fact that Sleaze was introduced a few months after this change, and that he gets to do the exact same things Lil’E did (with no charm) makes me think that it’s more than a tragic coincidence.

Coincidence or not, Sleaze is just a poor replacement for the character. Most strips that feature him feel like an attempt to fill the void Lil’E left in the comic.

What happened to Lil’E is a disturbingly accurate representation of what happened to the comic. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Meanwhile, in Sinfest, Tangerine just straight-up killed a dude! 

This current storyline has plot progression, world-changing events (well, status quo restoring events since it’s “the Johnbies are back”), and a real threat to a likable character.

But it’s also Sinfest so it makes no fucking sense at all and it’s not particularly clear if Tange physically teleported to hell between the first and second panels or if this is all taking place within a video game. Since she’s being attacked by the Johnbies who are escaping hell, I’m pretty sure she just teleported to Hell between panels without any explanation or acknowledgment because the alternative makes even less sense. 

[thewebcomicsreview]

Oh hey. Vainglorious got the upper hand in the conversation, and now he’s framed in the the throne in his painting, like Satan was earlier, symbolically restoring his power.

G-

Guys. 

Sinfest has a metaphor that it’s kept consistent over several strips.  On top of that, we’ve been on this storyline for a solid month without any random diversions (there have been no breaks in “The Ball”). Sinfest has been competent for 26 strips in a row, and this storyline even flows naturally from the previous one (which, alas, had filler interruptions). 

We also know that Vainglorious was actually planning to make a big move during the party (marching soldiers through the painting, which Satan foiled by sealing said painting), and we know that Satan has a plan for Vainglorious in return, and that there’s a random element in Tangerine. Like, I don’t want to gush too much before I see if Ishida sticks the landing, but this is the strongest run of Sinfest since Mecca tried to kill Slick, and it’s all the more beautiful because it’s short-lived.