Take That/Web Comics

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• After doing a series of Star Wars parodies, Irregular Webcomic did this strip.
  • "Oh, and by the way, 'xkcq' is worth 8 more points than 'xkcd' in Scrabble, or a whopping 30 more if both are played optimally on a triple word score. Nyahhh."
• Antimony from Gunnerkrigg Court has been compared a few times to that other orphan with strange powers who attends a strange boarding school. Tom Siddell is too much of a gentleman to make fun of another author, so guest comic author Ali Graham did it for him.
  • Tom Siddell reserves his snark for the Internet. See this page and the explanatory note below.
  • This alternative strip is a Take That at people who complained that the flashback wasn't made obvious enough.
• Order of the Stick once poked fun at Eberron, for that Dungeons & Dragons setting's magical trains. It should come as no surprise, as the author's own proposed setting won second place in Wizards of the Coast's setting contest -- which Eberron won.
  • Rich Burlew and Keith Baker seem to have what could be described as a friendly rivalry, so this is probably more of a Shout-Out, especially considering that Baker himself got a cameo in the second Order of the Stick prequel book, "Start of Darkness".
    • See also this article by Baker, on Burlew's website.
  • The swipes at Harry Potter taken in this strip, on the other hand, are somewhat less friendly. In his commentary in the compilation book, he took a parting shot at the people who sent him hate mail over it: "...hey! Harry Potter fans who can't take a joke! I have a spell for you: developus sensus humorous!"
    • In that same commentary, Burlew wrote that he likes the Harry Potter movies, and he makes fun of stuff he likes -see D&D and Lord of the Rings.
  • And as for Celine Dion, well, suffice to say Even Evil Has Standards.
  • Strip 539 has an averted Take That at Fox News.
    • As in, news provided by a (non-anthropomorphic) fox.
  • The few digs taken at Video Games in 619 are more or less neutral on the nasty-humorous axis. Though the Bistro is named "Blizzard's Restorant".
  • The last three panels of 623 can be seen as a Take That to the more obsessed readers.
  • Much of comic 560 and the first panel of 561 reference Lost. 561 is where it shifts from gentle poke to Take That.
  • Burlew did a couple of minor ones at the fandom of Thog. The Misaimed Fandom was commented on In-Universe by Tarquin, an evil dictator has put Thog into an endless series of Gladiator Games and marvels at how the fans love Thog no matter how many horrible things he does or how many people he kills. A few comics later Thog kicks his opponent's sword into the stands, where it beheads a random Thog fan. No one in the crowd seems to notice or care.
• The webtoon Bonus Stage is full of of Take Thats, roughly on par with Family Guy, but its creator Matt Wilson really doesn't like his fanbase: he has levelled several Take Thats against Bonus Stage Fan Fiction, Fan Dumb and the fan wiki.
• Penny Arcade took a swipe at Ctrl+Alt+Del with the side character L.H. Franzibald, a self-obsessed litigious pseudo-intellectual who writes books based on ideas plagiarised from Tycho. He talks in a slimy, needlessly wordy manner, often explaining the joke of a strip in the last panel, or indulging in acts of pointless violence -- once, a comic with him in even imitated the four-panel format of CAD. He wears a large pair of B-shaped sunglasses and his mouth is always only slightly open to give him the distinctive B^U look. To Penny Arcade's credit, it's used as self-deprecating humour, too -- according to the lore, the accusations of plagiarism are very tenuous, and Tycho's resentment of Franzibald is repeatedly shown to be pointless since Franzibald is still very successful.
  • VG Cats also took a shot at Ctrl+Alt+Del for April Fool's Day 2008.
  • Jeffrey Rowland gave Buckley a kick in the pants with this Overcompensating comic.
  • In fact a lot of people have, and for the sake of not turning this article into one, long CAD rant, we won't be posting any more.
  • Not to mention the Memetic Mutation that sprung up in the wake of his miscarriage storyline of people and other webcomic artists inserting the last panel where appropriate for maximum funnies. That was a small industry of Take Thats.
  • Several Penny Arcade strips make Take Thats at bad video games. One of the recurring Take Thats in earlier strips were directed towards John Romero, creator of the widely-panned Daikatana. Earlier strips also made fun of the PlayStation 2's launch (one E3-related strip even showed Gabe urinating on PlayStation 2 equipment), but around the 2001 mark, they started to be more kind toward the console.
• A lot of User Friendly involves attacks on Microsoft [1] (and its fandom [2] [3]). Or RIAA [4] [5].
  • "Web 2.0" crowd. Definition, example: calling paper magazine "Web 2.0 meatblog".
  • Here and the next two pages - on patent trolling by Cingular.
• This Adventurers!! strip is a Take That at PC games in general and the notoriously buggy PC port of Final Fantasy VII in particular.
  • Then again, pretty much the entire comic is an Affectionate Parody of games like Final Fantasy VII and their various clichés, so pinpointing one strip seems to miss the big picture.
• In The KAMics this comic gives the doomed guard the same name as another cartoonist who had done a comic trashing other comics characters & authors.
• After the World of Warcraft comic, Dark Legacy Comics, had been on a storyline about NPCs overthrowing PCs for several weeks, the author got enough of forum-goers complaining about the unrealism of such a concept and did this strip.
  • This PvP strip was similarly levelled at people who complained about the then-current Story Arc. Specifically, the strip was a response to this earlier Take That from the webcomic The Whiteboard regarding his disappointment in the wasted potential of that Story Arc.
• Minus had a fairly gentle Take That against most of the criticisms you'd expect to hear aimed at the idea of a comic about someone with infinite power. For extra points, imagine it as a Superman comic.
• Shortpacked, when not taking shots at Walky's own past exploits, takes the occasional swipe at certain newspaper comics, and lots of jabs at the worst aspects of Transformers fandom and fandom in general. And, sometimes, he manages to combine the two.
  • and recently another webcomic
  • And another Transformers strip here.
  • And this takes a shot at Macs, with the help of Transformers.
  • Honestly, it would take up an entire page catalouging the number of times Shortpacked did a Take That against the worst parts of Transformers fandom.
  • And obligatory kicking a dead, but sparkling horse: Mummyonahorse! Did you know that the Mummies "shroud their glittering skin with flowing cloth to disguise themselves from jealous mortal humans"?
• Achewood took potshots at stereotypically mediocre fantasy and furry webcomics hosted at places like Keenspot in this strip. Their activities are so poorly conveyed.
• Kris Straub's Chainsawsuit has done multiple Take Thats against other comics in the span of a few updates. These include Perry Bible Fellowship and XKCD. Twice.
  • ...turning to Batman movies, and Dragonball Z and Obligatory Star Trek joke. Also, George Lucas, his remakes, more of Lucas, and his retcons. Then, Braid, a certain fastfood and Conan O'Brien as well as Law and Order and Dateline. Also, poked fun at Paedo Hunt and trolled unfunny political Trolls (see the next page), parodied Green Aesop spam, "Disastorm" Hollywood Global Warming and Let's Meet the Meat ads.
• xkcd has parodied Penny Arcade twice. The two comics are here and here. But from the ending of the second and the Alt Text of the first, they definitely go into Affectionate Parody rather than Take That.
  • Also, The Other Wiki. Again, see Alt Text.
  • And news (you know the drill). And Texas Instruments.
• Take THAT Science Fiction! from El Goonish Shive
  • That? In comics with "An Evil Monkey -American"? And "Does This Remind You... Of Anything?"
  • "George Lucas: Take That Is Back!"; "Vampire sparkling: what exactly is a big Fetish Retardant". "Get out of here, you blonde androgynous interloper! Go play Final Fantasy X or something!"
    • The return of Vampire Romance Novels!
  • Sketchbook got Miss Sensorshep.
• 8-bit Theater once did a comic in which is, effectively, Black Mage making a pee joke and everyone else reacting with confusion and mild disgust. The name of the strip? "VG Mages".
  • Ludicrous Mary Sue nonsense (yet still mostly useless against a spellcaster) "Exalted Feat".
• Two Lumps has taken several pot shots at Garfield. This is one of the more blatant examples.
• R.K. Milholland says "Take That, TV Tropes!" in the first line of this Super Stupor comic. Apparently this was the result of someone parroting Black Comedy Rape in a Dude, Not Funny LiveJournal comment accusation against him.
  • Well, this one is more of a Take That against people who link to us as opposed to forming their own opinions, as well as Unpleasable Fanbases and the pure distilled awfulness of One More Day. It's hard to tell exactly how effective it is to "puppet" the opinions of a wiki which, after all, can be changed by anyone.
  • This isn't the only case of Take That that Milholland has ever done, of course. For example:

Davan: I think I read the "Excited" entry on Wikipedia right before some idiot had it deleted for relevance.

• Sluggy Freelance once had the cast go to war with Dilbert and kill off every single character from that strip. Their reasons? "Dilbert just really ticks us off!" The news media also came in for a lampooning in that one.
  • This (spoilerly) comic was a remarkably civil Take That to those who still insist that a certain character is still alive.
• In response to people who demanded faster updates, suggesting a sacrifice in art quality to achieve it, Thunt of Goblins offered this to appease them.
• Least I Could Do launches one huge Take That against overblown Crisis Crossovers, Comic Book Death, Wasp Fridge Stuffing and sloppy retcons; starting here.
  • And Overcompensating, in defense of the webcomics whose characters were used without credit, retaliated.
• This DMFA strip.
• The Good Witch is an extended Take That against aspects of The Wotch; this strip in particular gives the idea.
• UG Madness, a Magic the Gathering webcomic, has done a few Take Thats against Yu-Gi-Oh!.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal does this regularly. Besides the ones on religion: Take that art community! Take that sitcom platitudes! Take that imaginary government bureaucrats! Take that nerds!
• Dueling Analogs did one to the Hatedom of Ctrl+Alt+Del.
• Questionable Content had Sven and Faye starting up a Karaoke Take That against each other for three comics, starting here.
• Better Days artist Jay Naylor once frequented FurryMUCK, an online roleplaying environment for furries; during his time there, there was a specific section that he visited regularly, but when his behavior started to get on people's nerves, the owner of the "building" called him out on it in a rather public manner. So what does Naylor do? He leaves FurryMUCK and makes an entire chapter of his comic a prolonged Take That, turning D'anna into what is essentially the Big Bad of the chapter.
• The announcement that the long-running Power Rangers show would end with its current incarnation Power Rangers RPM has led to all sorts of fandom reactions, including this rather belated one from the Kamen Rider-themed Soucha-Koma.
• Tales of the Questor takes a jab at sparkly unicorns.
• The Tales of the Questor spin-off Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger has been the vehicle for many odd Take Thats, including one against pirates (according to the artist, due to the fact that at the time that arc was being planned out, people were going ga-ga over the Pirates of the Caribbean). Includes a very heavy-handed Take That aimed at Star Trek, starting from their strange designs and stranger idea of workplace safety, and proceeding to poke fun at Planet of Hats.
• VG Cats did numerous of Take Thats, but one of the best is this.
  • For those who love this smell in the morning - carpet bombing.
• Not to be left out, Ciem 2 has, in its fifth chapter, several Take That moments against Titanic. Even if that's an awful lot for a comic with such a small fanbase to tackle all at once.
• Freefall these from time to time -- a typical example.
  • Or this. Or this. Or this (it's as if some horses were born for post-mortem kicking).
• A Take That against Twilight in the Retarded Animal Babies guy's webcomic.
• Dead of Summer did a Take That against the Bush Administration here.
• Strip #231 (Bonejerk Homework) of Sexy Losers takes a swipe at fans of Megatokyo.
• Hijinks Ensue exists almost solely to hurl Take Thats against various people and companies, most frequently FOX for their habit of picking up Geek-centric shows (Firefly, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, etc.) only to cancel them prematurely. The very first strip was a Take That against Spider-Man 3.
• Mystic Studios Productions' Horndog and Here Wolf make fun of pretty much everyone, including the comics themselves and their creator.
• The Wotch was at one point attacked by Something Awful. A few weeks later there came a minor plotline where Anne was besieged by a giant Troll; Miranda West saved the day by banishing it to a dimension named Sapoe.
  • "I sent it to a troll dimension, he'll like it, full of trolls"
• Living with Insanity indulges in these occasionally. Be they an Animal Wrongs Group like here, annoying customers, emos and even David attacking himself.
  • The Finale of The Authors Fatman Returns saga is a blatant TAKE THAT at another website that accused the creator of plagiarism. The other "Fatman" site accused the creator of stealing ideas, and posting them on his site before they got a chance to post it on theirs. The (hilarious) accusation was unfounded since the other site was set up 5 months after The Author started his Fatman sagas.
• The bug of Bug sometimes really dislikes Michael Bay.
• The Whiteboard
  • Doc broadsides journalists who claim paintball is a war simulator by saying that the college courses seem to narrow their vocabulary.
  • The password to Doc's e-mail account is "pbnsuxxors".
• Ret-Conned took a shot ^{[dead link]} at Grant Morrison, after his shocking reveal in Batman & Robin #12.
• Head Trip did a lot of this, mostly to Twilight (itself, its fans and its author), The Last Avatar and brainless TV shows (scare included).
  • Though Boston Mooninite Invasion, Emo Potter, Childfree, Otherkin, Sailor Moon, Cosplayers and one very special abortion of the fashion also earned "honorable" mentions... plus a handful of others who didn't even deserve a separate strip.
  • Sets the right baseline to appraise Michael Bay's version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Amazing Super Powers on certain legalisms. And one for RoboCop (see the name and Alt Text).
• Sequential Art to Twilight. And Uwe Boll. Of course.
  • Martians (EXTERMINATE!) look like trash cans. But at least like cool, modern and stairway-capable trash cans.
• Luke Surl launched a many-pronged one (see Alt Text).
• In this Blip strip, three friends, a witch, a vampire, and a Cyborg, watch a marathon of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Twilight, and Terminator Salvation. Their reactions are priceless.
• Now even Mezzacotta pokes fun at TV Tropes!
• Exterminatus Now had some good ones.
• The Oatmeal artist/writer Matthew Inman expresses his 14 years of agonizing frustration as a web designer with this strip. No wonder the dude quit to make web comics.
• Sinfest is full of these. Got a good one to Toon Town and Mickey Mouse. And Bread and Circuses mini-arc (see also the previous page). Also, one to Michael Bay.
  • And (you knew it was coming) "The Twilight Saga: Moonshine".
• From Plus EV: Is Gold Coast really that shitty? No idea.
• In At Arms Length, "The Song Remains the Same" story arc is a big one at pop singers and also the entire pop music establishment.
• Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic filler reminds: for small gifts of Fate (hey, at least they don't sparkle).
• Schlock Mercenary had an arc involving an Expy of What Not to Wear. The host had a misfortune to accost a boosted and rather irritable mercenary. Naturally, it wasn't long before she "put assault back in Glamour Assault". And "put the <okay we're done here> back in assault, too".
• uranianUmbra (UU) and undyingUmbrage (uu) of Homestuck are widely believed to be jabs at two sectors of the HS fandom. UU represents the fans who obsess over it, doing fanart etc. and trying to drag their friends into reading HS. By contrast, uu represents the impatience and rage of fans whenever Andrew Hussie dares take more than 24 hours to update, as well as spluttering intolerance of the fans represented by UU.
• Full Frontal Nerdity by its very nature turns this way often. Like this to Dan Brown. Or here:

Cthulhu: Well, of course I liked "A Beautiful Mind", but that's because driving people insane is part of my freakin' job!

• B-Movie Comic is mockery by design (read its name again), whether cliché or continuity issues -- but even so, it joins the ritual beating of that sparkly undead horse.