Ah yes,
User Friendly. I will help elaborate how exactly User Friendly sucks. Feel free to /MSG me if I've left anything out.
Firstly, everyone bitches about the art's quality. Now the quality of art isn't always the most important thing in a comic, the art should be tolerable atleast. I'll gladly admit that the first year or so of
Sluggy Freelance didn't look so hot, but Pete got better. UF looks like
Adventurers....well, those parts they didn't steal from
Bloom County.
Secondly, UF works on the concept that
Windows or anything related to it is funny because it's mindless, while
Linux is elevated to Godlike status. I got nothing against bashing MS or Windows..but when the point of the comics is "Ha ha, you use Windows. You're stupid!", that is not comedic gold my friends. "We're using Linux, we're superior to you Cromags." "Ha ha, Windows users can't spell cromags, they're stupid!" That is your average UF strip. UF uses "humor" like Windows and marketing like how the Japanese use "humor" in their
anime series. In anime, food is considered highly hysterical. Characters eating a lot of food, whining about food, still hungry after said binge, or any possible combination thereof in anime is comedy. Food is not the award winning source of comedic gold the Japanese think it is, just as Windows isn't the source of funny that
UF thinks it is.
As I mentioned above, UF borrows a lot of elements from
Bloom County. Some jokes/style of humor, some of the characters and characterizations...it was cool, back in the 80s. I prefer my
Steve Dallas and
Opus to remain in their original forms...not to be
transmogrified into some doofy marketing guy because "marketing people are funny". Oh, and a dust ball with feet. That's
fucking great.
And then there's
UF Media, which is inherently wrong in itself. I mean, I'm not above someone getting paid for their contributions, but usually people wait until they're successful until they
whore out their characters. Alls I know is that from what I can tell, the most successful Net comic is
Sluggy Freelance, and Pete's just selling books and T-Shirts. But I believe
Tycho Brahe from
Penny Arcade said it best in their strip about UF Media. You have to check it out for yourself, but in the meantime I can say that what
UF Media strives for,
Jeff K. has done already at http://www.somethingawful.com/features/usarfreindley/.
So, in conclusion, I hope I have illustrated why User Friendly sucks. Bad art + Lame Writing + "Borrowed" Character elements = bad strip. I hope you have enjoyed my points, and will come to the light. (BTW: For those wondering, I read all of UF from its start until the Sluggy Freelance/UF Crossover).