R.K. Milholland
“Something Positive”
Updates daily
I was drawn to Something Positive almost a year ago by some of my more sophomoric colleagues when they recommended the steaming pile to me. At first I didn�t read “S*P” (if you want to be overly pretentious like the strip’s author, Randy Milholland); however, actually reading it turned out to be one of the most eye-opening events of my life. It showed to me that the worst webcomic out there is one of the most popular.
There is absolutely nothing positive to say about the strip itself, leading me to suggest that the title itself should be worthy of a false advertising charge and a fine no more or less than the sum of $22,000. Why that specific amount? Mr. Randy Milholland managed to swindle his loyal, brainless readers into giving him that much money so that he could quit his job and devote his entire day to this load. Living the dream? More like being paid to be untalented. Personally, I preferred when his work schedule kept his mind pollution down to a minimum.
The only genius, and I�m sure this happened quite unintentionally, with S*P happened during the creation of the characters and concept themselves. Randy hit upon the perfect spectrum of characters to appeal to the lowest common denominator on the internet — the dejected geek. His characters have absolutely no depth, preferring to stand rigid as stale archetypes.
In main character Davan exists the WSINGWITBSOH, or Witty Smart Intelligent Nice Guy Who Is Treated Badly by Society and Outcast for Being Himself. (Too bad that “himself” in this case is an irredeemable asshole.) In Peejay and Audrey exist the STIWSFWGSOHMTL, or Strong Intelligent Witty Sexual Females Who Get Screwed Over by the Horrible Men in Their Lives. (Perhaps because they too are irredeemable assholes?)
Then we have minor supporting characters such as the Token Gay Guy�, the Womanizing Fat Assholish Slob, and the Vacuous Slut. Those characters don’t matter, though — which is not to say that any of these pathetic lumps actually matter — in the overall success of the strip.
His success comes from the fact that these archetypical characters draw in the socially-destitute loner crowds like a two-for-one sale at the local Adult Movies Shoppe. The average sad sack doesn’t see himself as he really is, but as his champion, Davan. When our poor tabletop gamer reads dialogue so long-winded that it would put Dickens to shame, and so sarcasm-laden that Mark Twain would have an aneurysm, he believes that to be how he really talks — or at least, that’s what he wishes were true. (He’s already got the ugly and outcast thing going for him, anyway.)
The two girls of the strip might as well be the same character; they are presented as intelligent, strong, witty, sexually-driven, and yet at the same time completely taken advantage of by the crafty, evil male. Your typical internet guy — we’ll call him AragornTehKing7781 — sees them as the perfect mates, and wants not only their companionship and bodies, but also to defend them from the guys that he already hates because they steal his women in the real world. Or on The Real World, for that matter.
Did I mention that these girls are Asian? Instant classic.
And girls read these characters and see how they want to be, and then also feel sorry for them because they can’t find the right man and get used like old tampons. (Thank you, Dramatic Plot Device.) Right there, through utter genericism, Randy has struck chords with his fan base and gotten them to feel for his bland characters.
Really, though, why do people empathize with these monsters? Davan is a pretentious dick who looks down on everyone, the fat guy is a womanizing man-slut, and the two Asian girls are the meanest, most manipulative bitches, and also the most (boringly) violent of the bunch.
The real question that nags me night and day is why people are compelled to read this trash. Do they empathize with the characters so much that they are completely blind to the cheap emotional tricks and repetitive, trite, lowbrow, and generally unfunny “humor?” Some of these same readers scream how other strips are dull copies of themselves; all while they fail to see it under their own noses.
What is supposed to be the selling point of this comic is its biggest failure; it is absolutely unable to make me laugh. Day in, day out, if it isn�t Dave making ridiculously unrealistic (and panel-filling) sarcastic insults, it is the dyslexic duo threatening to cut somebody�s testicles off with the bluntest object they can get their disgusting little hands on. Ho, ho.
If he ever runs out of those little gems of plot devices, he can always fall back on cheap sexual humor, because nothing is funnier than how many people Monette (which is French for ‘money,’ and slang for ‘whore’) fucked in the last seventy-two hours. Not only that, but there was one strip where Davan�s boneless cat (who flops around like a deflated volleyball) went panty-raiding. Oh wait, that was a two-week long story arc.
The extreme threats of violence are also so over-the-top that they can make out the earth’s curvature. Only the reality-TV watching, summer-blockbuster-loving, Tom Clancy-reading scum of the earth would find this tripe amusing. That vein of “humor” got old with the first threat, along with his mockery of Wicca, suicide victims, and numerous abortion jokes. Oh, I see — that’s edgy and real.
There are only so many times that the age-old “I should invent a time-machine so that I can go prevent your parents from having sex” punchline should be used in any given comic strip, and S*P crosses that line by distances best measured in astronomical units.
The art is okay.
In conclusion, I recommend that rather than read Something Positive, you go and actually do something positive with your time, which compared to reading this sad excuse for entertainment, could be anything.
But, if you decide you are masochistic enough to read S*P, I think I can save you a little bit of time.
Don�t read anything said by Davan, just imagine that he is belittling some poor guy with carloads of bile. Forget anything said by the Asian girls, you might as well go watch a snuff film, or read Nietzsche. With this advice, not only will you save yourself innumerable moments of physical illness, but you will also get through the entire archive in a matter of minutes.
Thanks for nothing, Milholland, and enjoy the cash.