Questionable Content: Vol. 1

You know, as long as I'm finishing with 8BT, perhaps I'll quit on Questionable Content (awful, awful name) too, because it makes me feel like a dupe and a loser. Jeph Jacques ("pronounced 'Jacks', you fucking peons! What kind of idiot could possibly think it was French? My fans are all pathetic loners with nothing in their lives except masturbatory fantasies about my characters") basically is as misogynist as it's possible to be while maintaining a fig leaf of indie whatever--the dominant plot here is that all the female characters are totally fucked up emotional wrecks who need the male characters (also neurotic, but in a nice way; where the women snap at you and freak out and lash out and all the rest, the men are all "oh, I am not show more confident! oh, I am a lothario! but we are basically nice dudes!") to gently but firmly correct them when they get insane, which is always. It's SO INSULTING, and he thinks we'll shut up and take it as long as he draws pictures of appealing, nonthreateningly hip characters who we can pretend are our friends in our small midwestern town. Don't even get me started on the class attitudes displayed; gender, or even just general smugness, is enough to sink this one. Also, way too many unfunny porn and fart jokes (and I am not even against porn and fart jokes, as long as they're the right ones, and deployed with a senstive hand). In terms you'll understand, Jeph Jacques, I'm not gonna be your bitch any more. Your comic is soap operatic and addictive--absolutely--but following it is like one long walk of shame. Oh yeah, and if you think that Faye the way you draw her is fat, or "bigger" or whatever pathetic nice-but-still-judgmental guy euphemism you'd use, then please go die.


Ack! And when I went to find an especially offensive strip to use as the "cover" image, you sucked me back in for twenty minutes when I need to be doing readings! FUCK YOUUUUUUU! I'll just use the one of Faye worrying that her ass jiggles at the gym. NOTE THAT SHE IS NORMAL TO THIN. show less

OK, so it's a little nutsy to buy a print version of a web comic. However, it is often easier to get people to look at a book than a computer screen, and this is the first step in my plan to convert all the intelligent people I know to Questionable Content fans (the dumb folk I know can continue with newspaper comics). The short comments on the strips are a nice addition, as are the "remix" comics -- the strips where he lost the original hi-res art and so had to redraw them. His art style has changed considerably over the years and this is a nice way to track that.

Ok, now for the comic. Full of indie rock references, anthropomorphic computers, sass, and denied sex, QC is, hands down, my favorite webcomic. I've gone through several over show more the years, and eventually either the artist pisses me off, I lose connection with the jokes and story lines, I get bored, or I can tell the artist is getting bored. But I've followed QC with great interest for about 5 years now. I discuss it in depth with friends like I would a great TV show or book series -- speculating, explaining, generally spending a lot of time thinking about the characters and situations. That speaks strongly to the quality of Jacques' story telling ability. That I can (and have) spent hours thinking about a webcomic may point a sad finger at my life, but I think it's just that the comic is fun and interesting. show less

There are many webcomics available on the web and while I've tried many of them, there are only four that I've liked, and only two of those that I read regularly. Questionable Content (QC) is one of those two. I love reading this comic. I love enough that I was eager to purchase both of the printed collections.

I admit it, that means in giving a fair critique of Questionable Content: Volume 1, I'm pretty strongly biased in favor of it already. And re-reading all of the strips collected in this volume didn't disappoint. Its at least my third time reading these strips and I still laugh (at or with) and empathize with the characters in QC.

I think one of the big selling points for me is that the characters are believable. None of them are so show more over the top that I have difficulty believing that they could exist, that there could be a Marten-like guy out there with friends like Dora, Faye, Steve and the others. At the same time, there's a touch of science fiction, particularly in the character of Pint-size, Marten's AnthroPC.

The artwork of the comic succeeds in supporting the dialogue and action of the story, without "getting in the way". I never find myself being jarred out of the story by the comic's art. The art is pleasing the look at, most characters are visually distinct and their differences in looks and personality are very clear.

I should warn other readers that there's frequently innuendos, sexually explicit comments, "potty" humor, and cussing made by the characters of the comic. Normally, the last two in particular would be either annoying or offensive to me. I think it all succeeds in Questionable Content because Jeph Jacques includes the "questionable" material intelligently. It isn't cussing for the sake of cussing, its cussing because that's what the character would say at that moment. It is potty humor, but it isn't juvenile. The way Jeph writes the dialogue makes it work where other artists/writers wouldn't be able to pull it off.

Some comments more specific to the collected printed volume: The visual quality of the pages is excellent. The strips are reproduced from high-resolution images and NOT from the web-quality images you see on the website. In a few cases, Jeph had to recreate some strips, which he recreated in his current style rather than attempt to recreate his style of seven years before.

In addition to the web-comics themselves, you also get Jeph's comments on each strip and a bonus "short story" (a comic strip series not shown on the web) about Faye and Marten.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with my purchase and I'm looking forward to when I can buy Volume 3. show less

4,1 stars

This comic holds a lot of nostalgia for me, because I used to love the webcomic when I was a teenager. Mostly, I still enjoy this a lot. However, this was written in the early 2000's and some things haven't aged well, at least to my eyes. For example, using the word "retarded" as a derogative. Or the whole friend zone trope. Or how it's okay for Faye to be so violent toward Marten and how it's cute because she's a girl. And so on. Having said that, I still really liked this, especially considering this is just the beginning of the story and I'm sure the writing grows and develops as time goes by. I can't really say I remember very well, considering how long it's been since I last read these. I'll definitely be moving on to show more volume two, and hopefully eventually catching up to present day. show less

I must kindly, yet firmly and utterly, disagree with the lone review of this webcomic. Yes, many of the characters are emotionally f'ed up, and many of them happen to be female, but the driving force behind any drama (and this webcomic is a dramatic, plot-oriented endeavor) is... well, drama. So Faye's crazy because of an incident in her past, but she's seeing a FEMALE, NON-CRAZY therapist. And as a woman that loves my body, totally-normal-average-hour-glass curves and all, I have to say that I can identify with how Faye occasionally voices that she feels fat. American society is hell-bent on calling normal girls fat, and that sort of constant cultural bombardment is bound to seep into your thoughts at some point.

And, just for the show more record, here are some female characters that don't come off as misogynistic representations of women: Martin's mom controls her body and does what she pleases with whom she wants; Martin's co-worker is a self-identified lesbian that doesn't seem the least bit crazy to me, other than her small spats of lady-drama (which, again, this is a story that depends on drama to drive plot arcs - and anyway, who doesn't have lady drama?); Hanner's mom is a high-powered businesswoman that uses her power to do what she wants (here you might use this example in a rebuttal - I preemptively respond that her mad-scientist father is the same way, but with science instead of business; birds of a feather and all); Faye's therapist, a female, is the one person she TRULY leans on for most of the story arc, until she becomes more comfortable with the rest of the characters; Steve dates a lot of really normal girls - Cosette at the moment, I believe, who is not the least bit crazy. I could go on. But I don't want to - I feel I have sufficiently supported my claims. QC is hardly sexist and definitely worth the read. show less

Found this in an LFL of all places. I don't recognize very many of these strips, so maybe a reread through the archives would be worth the screen time. I just wish that I hadn't loaned my paper copies of the first few books to a friend who never gave them back. Anyway. Very vulgar, but still adorable.

Jeph Jacques is one of my favorite comic artists, I even have three prints that I had commissioned at the Edmonton and Calgary comic expos. I really want the rest of this series.