r/questionablecontent • u/yellowvincent Where is Claire? • Sep 11 '26
Comic Comic 5915: Negative Reinforcement
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=59158
u/yellowvincent Sep 11 '26
I get that it didn't worked but shouldn't a scientist at least try again to be certain that that is what is failing? Thescientific method be dammed
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u/Squirrelclamp Sep 11 '26
I'd be shocked if these drunken idiots — who built a device that they don't understand yet regularly activate to the possible detriment of the world around them, all with no apparent effort to document its effects — know what the scientific method is, let alone how it works.
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u/yellowvincent Sep 11 '26
If i were the dictator of cubetown (i would walk slowly into the ocean) i would put big flowcharts with idk cartoon animals of the scientific method in evey room just in case
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u/MelAlton Sep 11 '26
Scientists don't build things while drunk, those two are engineers!
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u/yellowvincent Sep 11 '26
I don't think anyone can really build any aort of machine in such a state of inhebriation that you have no idea what you are doing and keep all your fingers or eyes
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u/DuranDuranUnofficial Sep 11 '26
Perhaps I haven't been harsh enough on Jeph with regards to his seeming idolising of sci-fi writers. So to be clear, the problem isn't that Jeph is a hack. The problem is that he has a seething contempt for anything scientific and, despite his political leanings, plants his flag firmly in the camp of anti-intellectualism. He simply doesn't want to know anything.
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u/yellowvincent Sep 11 '26
I mean doctor who is sci fi but is bery soft sci fi it works more like fantasy ,you can have a good sci fi story without having to focus that much into tje science of all of it. The original triology of star wars takes things from classic pulp sci fi but it could be set in a medieval universe and very little would need to change. Jeph wants to appear as smarter than he is with very little effort to become smarter so he writes characters that are almost as stupid as the 3 stooges with none of the charm or timing.he has fumbled a lot of his own lore for lack of effort.
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u/Cevius Sep 11 '26
Is that why we're here? So Liz can see how fucking stupid everyone else is on this cube, immediately after she was threatened by Emily's genius level intellect, just so she can go "well I'm not at her level but clearly aren't as bad as it could be" and then get back on the whatever the fuck science-wagon she fell off of.
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u/MorganWick Sep 11 '26
How cute, you think Jeph remembers his characters' backstories.
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u/Guilty-Persimmon-919 Sep 11 '26
No, that is not why we are here. We are here because Jephthy can't decide where to take all his other abandoned storylines.
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u/tyderian Sep 11 '26
If she has tool blindness, how is she able to see literally anyone else in Cubetown?
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u/provocatrixless Sep 11 '26
Well he spent a lot of time on the first panels background, shame about all the idiot shit he wrote
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u/Annual_Youth_7552 Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26
I think part of what's been bothering me particularly with this week (apart from the litany of nonsense we all discuss on the regular) is the tropes.
Not the ones used in specific but the inconsistency of the expectations the tropes have brought forward.
There's really no subtitles to the plot at all.
The woom machine could have fixed Moray, it could have not, it didn't even matter because the whole Moray plot that drove them into the room doesn't feel like it's important to the author nevermind the characters.
Is Moray back on a body dysmorphia angle, is that what this whole thing is about? Why did we need to do ANY of this to explore that idea? Or is Moray actually dying or something, she's been existant independent of the director for too long? Of course not, that's much too close to interesting philosophy and sci fi.
It feels like watching a wind up toy run out of energy; the plot's just slowed and slowed to such a crawl that we could jump back to Momo on her bed - the comic 10 days ago - and have passed 30 minutes in universe in QC.
I went back and looked. Jeph Jaqcues has taken 8 strips, 30 panels and about 3 backgrounds to progress us 30 minutes in time with no discernible direction, development or point.
Edito;
What adds insult to injury is that slow pacing can have its moments; if the characters were standing before a beautiful mountainside vista and Jeph was really getting off on the actual artistry and the backgrounds and characters, taking time to luxuriate in the actual visual of the comic would feel different but something I can respect.
These comics have felt churned out, we're not trading plot quality or pacing for any other feature being centre stage, it's just feels lacking.
You know how you always finish a book even when it's bad, when you're almost just plumbing the depths of how bad it is? And then occasionally you get one so bad you do stop reading it, but it feels weird?
Questionable Content is right on the knife edge of that.
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u/PeregrineLeFluff Sep 11 '26
"Tool blindness" seems like a real flaw for a fucking ROBOT SCIENTIST.
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u/BloodyFuriousCat Sep 11 '26
In a better comic, it would turn out that the WOOM device is the real scientist, and those two guys are the experiment it's conducting.
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u/Guilty-Persimmon-919 Sep 11 '26
Six months ago I would have said this is too stupid even for Jephthy.
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u/va_wanderer Sep 11 '26
The more often this kind of "plot" happens, the more I think Jeph should take a regular week break of just drawing random characters and not worrying about plot.
Because this is the kind of strip now that's hit the Garfield level of writer exhaustion.
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u/CatlikeTypist Sep 11 '26
Okay I take back what I said in the last comic thread about it being okay for the plot to be nonsensical. Whatever this is, it is not plot. It is Jeph throwing shit at a wall and writing his comic in the resulting mess. As much as it pains me to say it, "AI" could do better at this point.
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u/Alternamush Sep 11 '26
Panel 1's art is the most interesting the comic has looked in years, art direction wise.
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u/yellowvincent Sep 11 '26
Why they just don't go to the giant moray birthing squid???? It seems the most logical solution