Internet Backdraft/Web Comics


 * Ctrl+Alt+Del, on three separate occasions, set the internet ablaze.
 * The first was during the ROM-icide incident, when the series creator, Tim Buckley, deleted most of the forum posters after he supposedly sent a picture of his penis to a 15 year old girl - which is a myth, but the deletions were definitely not.
 * The second was after the infamous Loss strip. Sending the series into Cerebus Syndrome at full force, made worse by Buckley's blog post in response to the strip.
 * The third was the infamous Abby-gate incident, when it was discovered that Buckley GISed one of his characters, shamelessly copying another persons artwork.
 * A Modest Destiny by Squidi versus Penny Arcade's forums due to copyright concerns -- more detail here.
 * The webcomic Bitmap World has parodied (Dead Link) the ending with a very literal interpretation of the event. (Spoiler, of course)
 * Want to start a fight on this wiki? Refer to "El Goonish Shive" and "No Bisexuals" in the same discussion. There will be aftershocks for months. On the page for EGS, No Bisexuals is followed by a warning not to get started.
 * Come to think of it, criticize EGS on this wiki and you can measure how long before it gets removed in the minutes.
 * David Morgan-Mar wanted to use the correct terminology: is the Lego implement in this Irregular Webcomic strip a spade or a shovel? So he looked it up online and found that no one can agree on the difference between spades and shovels, if there even is one. His below-the-comic commentary on the confusion simply inspired more people to weigh in and further confuse the issue.
 * Curiously, a lot of the confusion (especially the author's initial confusion) seems to come down to excessive literalism and people taking the same words to mean different things. At least in the UK, the definitions are as follows: (missing)
 * One real sad one is 20% of the internet vs. the other 80%. What makes them fight so? The quality of Ctrl+Alt+Del. 20% says it's okay, 80% says... something else.
 * Though this is obviously only about people that know/care about it.
 * Badly Drawn Kitties and Better Days began as a joint effort to write the same characters at different points in their lives, until a notorious schism between the authors, leading to Take Thats such as Badly Drawn Kitties dropping a bridge on the lead of Better Days and the creator of Better Days turning a major character's somewhat prominent bisexuality into an Aborted Arc. Bring up either, anywhere, and you're likely to start a fight over who wronged whom; bring one up on the other's forum, and may God have mercy on your soul.
 * Better shortcut than that: mention the reason that the two comics split, IE, the two creators ended their relationship. No, seriously, that's not a dig.
 * In the official Order of the Stick forum, you can raise a flame with several issues: Vaarsuvius' gender, the nature of the Monster in the Darkness, if Miko was meant to be Roy's love interest (or anything about Miko at all, really), Haley's mother nature, and if the webcomic is going to be upgraded to D&D 4e. Ironically, almost all points received the Word of God about them, and most of the time the flame will be started by people claiming to be sick reading that issue AGAIN. Newbies are going to have hard times.
 * And yet people will let any Epileptic Trees theory, no matter how ridiculous, fly. Personal favorites include: "Thog is a member of the orc tribe that captured Elan/Durkon/V", "Therkla is Haley in disguise" (WHAT!?), etc.
 * Oh, and just do not mention what happened between Belkar and the Oracle. The mechanics of that incident are vague enough for people to interpret it in any one of several ways, and they're all convinced their view is the right one. Were the Oracle's attempts to placate Belkar genuine, i.e., did he think that Belkar ultimately did cause Roy's death? Was the Oracle pissing off Belkar so he would kill him? For some reason, the latter theory has somehow caused the Oracle to be labeled a Magnificent Bastard and the plan a Xanatos Gambit, even though "rile a maniac into murdering you" sounds like just about the worst plan in history.
 * Vaarsuvius's alignment, and anything related, especially.
 * Erfworld: Ansom's ability to beat Parson's schemes, and whether was a Deus Ex Machina.
 * Try to say something positive about Dominic Deegan on this wiki and watch the flood roll in.
 * Or Ctrl+Alt+Del.
 * Or The Wotch.
 * On the Misfile forums, just ask "The Infamous Pedal Question" or raise the issue of gender pronouns. Or call Hazelton's answer to the question an Ass Pull and see how many seconds until it's reverted.
 * Over on the forums for the furry webcomic Las Lindas, a huge forum war erupted after this strip (as well as the strips that came before and after that one) were posted; fans were split over whether or not Miles deserved to get dumped because of what he did to Taffy (he'd been in a relationship with her for quite some time without any intimacy between them). Though it's been over a year since the "war" there, every so often, a new fan will join the forums and attempt to reignite it (longtime forum regulars are usually quick to defuse the situation, especially those who were at the center of the original "war"), and several forum members still hold small grudges against those who opposed their viewpoint on the situation.
 * We'll just reserve this space for the fallout of Rachael and Mora's fight.
 * Hell, the overall quality of the comic itself tends to spark rather heated debates, to the point where some of it has spilled onto this very wiki.
 * Any discussion of the Les Yay in Gunnerkrigg Court. ("You're a homophobe!" "You're a Lolicon Yuri Fanboy!")
 * For extra fun: "Did Reynardine really attempt to ? (If not, was it part of a Xanatos Gambit or a Xanatos Roulette?)" The forum has gone on for pages about it, and there's still no consensus, and probably will not be until it is resloved in-comic.
 * Mention how much you love Megatokyo anywhere else than its official forum. Sit back and watch the wank. For a bonus, say that you think it got better since Rodney left.
 * One needn't go outside the Megatokyo forums to get into a flamewar about MT. It's apparently popular, for those outside the "Story Discussions" and "SD Fanworks" subforums, to take a dump on the comic, even if without the comic the other forums wouldn't exist (it's not internet fairies paying the forum bandwidth, after all).
 * Grim Tales from Down Below. Three words: This one comic has managed to cause many a flame war.
 * 8-Bit Theater's Brian Clevinger: An avante guarde artist whose false endings and anticlimax moments are a brilliant deconstruction of epic storytelling? Or a creative sadist who's realized that he can tease and torture his fanbase any way he likes and they'll still keep coming back for more? His own words, that "the best jokes are the ones played on the audience", certainly don't help matters.
 * Every time this happens, the fans come out in their thousands, most begging and pleading for things not to really end like this, others handing out well-meaning compliments and thanks for a well-written comic, and a strong minority who fall over themselves trying to be the first Smart Mark to spot the gag and make fun of others who believe the setup is for real.
 * Penny and Aggie
 * Helen: misunderstood woobie underdog, or spiteful, self-pitying traitor? If you like forum discussions well exceeding twenty pages per thread, you'll love this.
 * Agenny: The strip's inevitable outcome, shameless OOC (albeit well-foreshadowed) Fan Service, or a fanfiction-level Ass Pull? Should they stay together or not? In-character, was it a good idea in the first place, or not?
 * Waltrip vs. Lagace vs. Milholland. Milholland vowed never to do another guest arc again after the first two... and then he did a Crossover.
 * Penny and Aggie anything. That fandom can pick anything to the bones, suck out the marrow, and write a treatise on the meaning of each joint.
 * Ménage à 3: Zii: Loveable Sex Maniac, or Manipulative Bastard Karma Houdini?
 * Have we mentioned Ctrl+Alt+Del yet?
 * For as widely respected as Penny Arcade is, its subject matter choices and...let's say "irreverent" approach have produced a few.
 * The controversy over the infamous "dickwolves" comic, which turned into a six-month internet war that resulted in boycotts of PAX and death threats directed at the main players on both sides, and re-surfaced some years later when they discussed the comic and their apology at a later con.
 * A more insular version came back in 2006, when the guys mocked a webcomic documentary they found silly and pretentious, especially the performance of webcomic artist Cat Garza.
 * The Homestuck fandom has its own special word for this: Vriskachat.
 * Please Don't Ask about the replaced music in a few animations. It brings up unpleasant memories.
 * One sorta-started after Hussie made a tumblr post saying that all the characters lack any race, and then edited a line of text to make reflect that.
 * Discuss Sailor Nothing. Is it a brilliant deconstruction that totally predates more subversive stuff released recently, like Madoka Magica or Pretty Cure? Or a Bloodier and Gorier piece of i-net crap with a creepy obsession with Rape as Drama and has massive Did Not Do the Research in regards to Japanese culture? Is it true that more than one local edit about it was actually made by the author himself or people in his inner circle, or are these just coincidences? Either way, think twice before asking.