Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence

A Matter Of Diplomacy

The Bears vs. the Packers. The Redskins vs. the Cowboys. The Army vs. the Navy. Labourdonnais vs. McDonnell. Fischer vs. Spasspky. Laver vs. Rosewall. Borg vs. Connors. USA vs Russia at the 1980 Olympics.

Sam vs. Jeph.

Sam Logan and Jeph Jacques have been going at it, pen to pen, tete e tete, nose to grindstone in one of the dirtiest and longest running webcomics rivalries ever. It started out innocently enough as a marketing device, but now… puppies are getting kicked.

It seems unusal that two creators who write such similar comics would be out for blood. Particularly when Jeph is such a whiny emo shoegazer. (Sam Logan, that amazon-wish-list-hacking, baby painting, easter egg stealing fiend, made me say that.)

I had a recent opportunity to try and reconcile these two and attempted to convince them to settle their differences like the gentlemen that I know they are.

Alas, I was not successful. When asked to speak kindly of Jeph, Sam had the following to say:

Let me tell you a little story about Jeph Jacques.

The two of us were walking back from the convention centre at last year’s Comic-con when we stumbled across a crowd of of schoolchildren admiring an adorable puppy. Jeph immediately reached into his briefcase — a briefcase made entirely from the skins of three endangered and two extinct species of animals — and removed a large club tipped with seven rusty nails.

Knowing Jeph as well as I do, I fully expected him to use the club to beat the poor defenseless puppy to death. But Jeph proved me wrong. He used it to murder all the children.

Indeed, Jeph adopted the puppy as his own son. Before long, he was living vicarously through the dog, pushing it into TV commercial work to wipe away the memories of his own failed childhood acting career. At the age of 7 months, the dog had all the fame and fortune that a mutt could dream of. But without the love he needed from his cold, ambitious father, he turned to drugs and alcohol. At 9 months, the broken puppy OD’ed on heroin.

THEN Jeph beat it with the club.

True story.

And then when I spoke to Jeph, he could not find it in his heart to say anything nicer than:

Oh, is that what that bastard Logan told you about me? A fitting statement from someone who repeatedly assaulted a group of Japanese tourists at the Dayfree Press Table in San Diego. A fitting statement indeed, considering that Sam Logan had actually paid for the Japanese tourists to come to the US for Comic Con specifically so he could beat them to death with the butt of a whaling harpoon in front of horrified onlookers. Onlookers who, I might add, were soon spitted upon the business end of his harpoon like so many writhing, flopping dolphins.

Which reminds me of the time Sam Logan interrupted some truly groundbreaking communication research I was doing with a group of friendly bottlenose on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Ask Sam about the scar on his left elbow- you know, the one he got when a mother dolphin gave her life in a futile attempt to spare her offspring his wrath. I’d tell you which part of his anatomy Sam used to plug the dolphins’ blowholes and suffocate them, but the details are simply too gruesome.

As if this murderous rage spelled out in comics and news blurbs wasn’t bad enough, they both got their fans involved!

We must increase the peace! Webcomic on webcomic violence must not be tolerated! The only way to soothe these savage egos is to read their comics so often that Jeph and Sam spend all their time counting page hits and speculating on t-shirt sales figures for the next quarter!

I’m sort of new to the comic scene, but it certainly appears that I need to have some horrible, scathing feud with another comic creator to truly be a part of the webcomic community. If anyone is interested engaging in an all-out war of words, please let me know! We can discuss the details and come up with some sort of mutually acceptable plan to shred each other to bits. I look forward to hating you!

You know, my father is a rabid Redskins fan. I don’t think he appreciates it when I call them the “Washington Badly In Need of a New Names”.

Jeph eats babies and Sam eats dolphins. Both are equally cute, equally useful. Maybe they’re just both evil.

Or maybe babies and dolphins just suck, and they’re trying to rid the world of their evils.

Apparently, John Allison is also on the Jeph-hating bandwagon. This could be a new trend.

http://www.scarygoround.com/?date=20060102

A new trend of “people mistaking jokes for actual hate”, perhaps.

A new trend of â€œpeople mistaking jokes for actual hateâ€?, perhaps.

Are there people taking this “feud” seriously? I’m hoping it’s obvious to outsiders how firmly Lowrey’s tongue is planted in his cheek, but do some of your readers actually think there’s a whole lotta hatin’ goin’ on?

how firmly Lowreyâ€™s tongue is planted in his cheek

Nobody else volunteered, so I had to use my own cheek.

No, not that cheek, you cheeky bastard!

I am extremely offended by the suggestion that our feud is actually an elaborate facade to generate traffic. If you keep insisting that I would stoop that low, I am more than willing to get into a high profile fight with you on a popular blog or message board.

It’s so obvious…

Besides QC and Sam & Fuzzy, this feud would have to be the funniest thing on the net at the moment. But in saying that, I hear the Sam Logan ties poor happless bunnies to the underside of his car before driving offroad…but you didn’t hear it from me…

I read them both on a regular basis. Jeph wins for updating more often.

I must say that this is a good, fair and just analysis of the ongoing epic – nay, TITANIC – struggle between Jeph “I Split Up The Beatles” Jaques and Sam “Good Will to All Men” Logan. I must give you due praise for allowing the devious (if not downright infernal) Jaques his say. It is admirable.

Admirable, but foolish, as you have undoubtedly damned all who have read his foul and most corrupting words (with – of course, the notable exception of He Who Can Do No Wrong – Mr. Logan).

I keep waiting for “A Lesson is Learned” to do a highly stylized strip dipicting these two mighty warriors in battle against each other. I’m sure I wouldn’t have a clue what was going on, because I never do with that ‘comic’, but I’d laugh just the same.

History will remember with sorrow when one finally succumbs to the pain and sorrow that is internet struggles and limps away… defeated. It will be epic.

Hey, I read both their comics. I am updated on their feuds. Ha!

I’d just like to add that Fuzzy would wipe the Floor with Pintsize.

Man, Marten vs. Sam would be one of the silliest, longest fights ever.

Someone else would definitely intervene.

This whole thing makes me incredibly happy.

True, but Faye would totally take down Alexa in the Hot-Chicks-with-Hella-Issues battle.

“I keep waiting for â€œA Lesson is Learnedâ€? to do a highly stylized strip dipicting these two mighty warriors in battle against each other.”

I keep waiting for “A Lesson Is Learned” to do a strip period. I love that comic, but there isn’t a lot of it to love given the erratic updates.

(I think that Sam would quite possibly win in the battle between him and Marten. He is totally coming of age and stuff, plus the run-ins with ninjas must have toughened his hide.)

Haha Sam vs. Marten. Funny stuff. And yes, I’m thinking Fuzzy would kill Pintsize, just because he is more pure evil.

A fight between Sam and Marten would end up with them both pouting in the corner.

Don’t you see? If only Sam and Marten would ally with each other, they could form an unstoppable force of pure undecidedness and self-loathing! How would Fuzzy and Pintsize react, I wonder? I guess pintsize would say something about boobs, and then fuzzy would spout an eaily marketable catch phrase.

Hrmm Marten vs Sam… Well Sam would invariably jump to a wrong conclusion and make something tragic happen, and Marten being a magnet for all things tragic and ever so slightly masochistic about it would embrace said tragedy fully. The thought I find scarier than Fuzzy vs Pintsize would have to be, what if the mated. I mean the sheer logicistics of it scrabbles the mind. Roboteddy?

He is called Teddy Ruxpin. and he will be your doooooooom!

I’m reading both, but I have a personal love for Sam and Fuzzy, having discovered it first and only being led to QC later. There sense of humor is… screw it. Marten and Sam can’t fight to save their lives, but Fuzzy and Candice would be the crap out of Pintsize and Faye.

And Jeph actually put super glue on the shoes of the protester at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Ahh! I can’t get the image of the Pintsize-Fuzzy-mating out of my head!

I understand that Sam Logan has created a new pair of shoes. Shoes, made out of the torso’s of gerber baby infants. :)

That said, though QC is my personal favorite comic of the 15 or so I read reguarly, Sam and Fuzzy is right up there.

And lastly, Faye would likely go super-defensive (ala Marten’s ex) if Marten and Sam got into it, and whip Sam, Candice, and likely Fuzzy for good measure. I’m not sure if Pintsize could get the gimp gear off before the fight, however.

I am currently being held prisoner in the basement of Sam Logan. He is torturing me daily by poking me with cattle prods, and force feeds me rotting puppy flesh which he has personally prepared. I am only now writing this because he has taken a break from me to throw babies at a nunnery. I managed to construct a simple computer out of barbed wire and animal bones I found down here, and am using a 56k modem made of kitten brains. Please send help, I don’t know how much longer I can last in the dastardly clutches of Sam Logan.

Because I’d imagine the concerned party might see it here at one point or another and see fit to tender a response:

Dear Mr. Jacques,
The continued success of your comic is a testament to the stagnation of two cultural idioms, namely webcomics and “indie-rock”. You should not let the fact that you have legions of loyal readers bolster your ego too much–this is due, in equal measure, to the commodification and codification of certain subcultural trends and the fact that your fans do not posses an ounce of good taste, regardless of how many Drag City records they may own. Some things to keep in mind in the future:
1) Revealing bits of hackneyed, uninspired backstory cannot be substituted for actual character development. It is insulting to you and your readers. But mostly your readers. If you have no interest in seeing your characters grow and develop in meaningful ways–beyond wanting to fuck each other, getting rebuffed, moping, reconciling, wanting to fuck each other, ad infinitum–perhaps you should dispense with the pretense of characters altogether. Perhaps your comic would be better served by introducing a cast comprised solely of varicolored, featureless blobs (ala Death To the Extremist), who could trade cheap innuendo-laden one-liners and name drop “hip” artists. This way, your readers will make no attempt to identify with your characters, and won’t be disappointed by your lurching, ham-fisted attempts at keeping the “plot” interesting without changing your essential dynamic.
2) Speaking of music in your comic: you shouldn’t speak of music in your comic. What is an “indie-rock” web comic? Apparently, it’s a malfunctioning RSS aggregator feeding off of Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes, spewing quips through the mouths of a cast of characters who do, through no fault of your own, come fairly close to capturing the sort of dispossessed-fractal homogeneity of the hipster fashionistas. Dressing your characters in Appleseed Cast and NMH t-shirts does little to dispel the Fox indie-sitcom feel you’ve got going there.
3) You could do better things with your comic. Rather than relying on trite sexual humor and blatantly obvious cultural signposts to keep bringing in the seventeen year olds, why not try your hand at some satire? Why not use the talent that you obviously have (and you do have talent, both as an artist and a writer, regardless of what I’ve said) to create something fresh, something which doesn’t perpetuate the stereotype of the self-involved, over-privileged, whinging white suburban hipster, but something which speaks out against group think and conspicuous consumption? You sell yourself short with this shit.
This entire tirade was prompted by your recent guest strip “So You’re Going to Rip Off QC”. I immediately thought, who is ripping you off? Who could be possibly be ripping off the most derivative comic being produced today? I am interested to know.
Good luck in all your endeavors. I am sure your comic will continue to be a success, and I will continue to be drawn to it, despite my best efforts to the contrary. It is much like watching a slow-motion train wreck.
Regards, your pal,
Miles
—–

Mr. Jacques has seen it fit to respond to my correspondence in the past, when the missives contained a few terse lines to the effect of “STOP PLEASE STOP YOU’RE HURTING AMERICA”.

i’m sorry but i have to agree with fuzzy and candice being better… i mean pintsize is a dear friend of mine but fuzzy rocks too much!!!! and plus i read QC before sam and fuzzy, and i honestly like sam and fuzzy alot more.

*yawn*

Sam and Fuzzy wins for plot at the moment (I mean, have you seen the latest Whatever Happened to Sam and Fuzzy storyline?), but QC would definately win in a fight. Here’s why:

Although Sam’s been toughened up by his recent misadventures among the ninjas, and although Fuzzy and Candice are (were) both members of the Ninja Mafia, and although they took the remaining members of Fuzzy’s ninja squad with them, wherever they went (at least I think they did), QC has a lot more bitchy, tough-ass chicks. And bitchy tough-ass chicks bat ough ninjas any day. Unless they’re bitchy tough-ass mafia ninja chicks. But S&F only has one of those.

Plus, QC has Pizza Girl. You’ve got to be pretty tough to randomly walk around in a pizza-themed superhero costume and not get any flack.

About the Fuzzy v. Pintsize battle, i wouldnt be so quick to judge Pintsize, he’s a very resourceful little bugger, and leave us not forget, Marten could always reinstall his lazer, now that would be a fight, Pintsize’s lazer v. Fuzzy with an Axe… new perspective.

[…] What really tipped the scales for me though, is that he is currently engaged in an ongoing feud with Sam and Fuzzy’s Sam Logan. Jeph should probably win a whole bonanza of awards, but for now, all he gets is the Tallest and most Improviest Cool Dude Award. […]

[…] Gary … and tired as hell. Which is probably why, in the context of this, I find this far funnier than I should. After all, we here at Fleen are all about webcomics community, and not interested in provoking shitstorms or internet fights to the bloody death. That being said, Bunny is owning all over those birds (start here and keep clicking on “next”, through the ten updates that Lem managed in one day). […]

As an avid reader of both comics, I must say that this rivalry has become, in the immortal words of one Strong Bad, “erratic, violent, and really funny to watch.” I seriously think that the fight between the webcomics would end in a stalemate. The only definitive victory would be Pintsize defeating Fuzzy, because {intsize would zap the hell out of him with that laser of his. Yes, I’m aware he had it taken out, but he probably got it back from some completely real black market vendor in a completely real city in the midst of a totally not-made-up country. Never you mind. But, then the bears would be released and kill them all. It would be the greatest battle of our time: greater, even, than the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

On a lighter note: Jeph, though the comic is amazing, and it feels bad to correct you, the Redskins do not need a new name. As an avid Skins fan as well, I looked up the origins of the name. The guy’s name leaves me now, but the original owner and founder of the Washington Redskins was part Cherokee (I think) and so they named the team the Redskins to honor his heritage. Booya.

[…] […]

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A Matter Of Diplomacy

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