Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

[Cikomyr2]

One-off weird customers are a long and storied tradition in this café.

Not as many lasting comedic potential as Jeremy Gordon Gary tho


edit: I meant Gordon. The Spider Bot.

edit 2: Goddamnit I meant Gary apparently

[Manga Shoggoth]

Me, I'm expecting a 2001 joke any minute.

[Wraith]

Have to admit: The minilith hasn't made cringeworthy Public Service Announcements, hasn't interjected itself into someone else's private conversation, isn't an obnoxious shade of pastel, doesn't have spectacles clipping through it's nose, hasn't assaulted someone as a punchline or used mental illness as throw-away gimmick....

Insofar as new character introductions go, I'm on board. 10/10; all hail, friend minilith.

[eee]

They should play music at it.

[Lapak]

If the humming slab doesn't have some method of communicating payment, it isn't a customer. Otherwise one question is, are the prices at CoD all distinct? If so, it make make payment, and expect the corresponding drink. I'm not sure we can answer that with certainty -- they have sold drinks not on the chalkboard menu that we see.

I might still serve an ominous humming slab even if it didn't pay me, just to get it to go away.

Which would be pretty funny if it was a slightly more forward-thinking mildly-malicious AI than May, one who decided to choose their physical form purely so it could scam innocent businesses and it can actually communicate perfectly well but chooses not to.

[VoxRationis]

I suppose the joke is on us for complaining about the myriad rainbow-colored humanoid robot bodies.

[Maryring]

I dunno. I like the minilith. They are a breath of fresh air.

Figuratively speaking at least. I'm not sure they have any functioning lungs.

[FLHerne]

I'm a fan of these recent scenes - yoga and particularly Coffee of Doom.

Feels like a partial throwback to the style/settings/characters of earlier QC, and I enjoy(ed) that much more than most of the pastel-android era. A hovering monolith that apparently wants to buy coffee, sans explanation, wouldn't have raised many eyebrows circa. strip 1500 and the comic was better for it.

Semi-realistic interpersonal plots with quirky interruptions out of left field, rather than Big Societal Issue plots conveyed through tortured metaphors about robots. Not that I have an issue with such plots in general, but Jeph's style of writing them doesn't work for me.

[Wraith]

As is usually the case with vtubers, I have learned something about them that is a) because of QC and b) mostly against my will. The two robots in Panel 1 of today's comic aren't just random anime-esque AIs, they're cameos. Apparently their names are Kroneii and Mumei, both are VTubers from something called Hololive Productions. It's a Japanese company that manages ~50 vtubers as a sort of Machinima-style collaborative agency (Wow, check out that early-2000's reference!)

I... don't think that Jeph is allowed to do that? I haven't looked into it - I'm deeply, deeply fatigued by this vtuber nonsense - but Reddit has very quickly found Hololive's fan-work policy, which explicitly states that you're not allowed to use their images in for-profit works, or as product of a business (which QC absolutely is, Jeph even made a comic about it). IANAL and all, but it feels like he's skating a very fine line between homage and IP infringement, and if it comes down to it, he won't be the one who gets to decide which it is....

[DavidSh]

"...flower..."? I don't get the tag line on today's comic.

[LeSwordfish]

As is usually the case with vtubers, I have learned something about them that is a) because of QC and b) mostly against my will. The two robots in Panel 1 of today's comic aren't just random anime-esque AIs, they're cameos. Apparently their names are Kroneii and Mumei, both are VTubers from something called Hololive Productions. It's a Japanese company that manages ~50 vtubers as a sort of Machinima-style collaborative agency (Wow, check out that early-2000's reference!)

I... don't think that Jeph is allowed to do that? I haven't looked into it - I'm deeply, deeply fatigued by this vtuber nonsense - but Reddit has very quickly found Hololive's fan-work policy, which explicitly states that you're not allowed to use their images in for-profit works, or as product of a business (which QC absolutely is, Jeph even made a comic about it). IANAL and all, but it feels like he's skating a very fine line between homage and IP infringement, and if it comes down to it, he won't be the one who gets to decide which it is....

I'm not fussed about a lot of the things people complain about here but "jeph suddenly becomes really into vtubers and suddenly two characters are vtubers and others are the wierdest cameos ever" is intensely irritating to me.

[Vinyadan]

I doubt that showing those two vtubers can be a problem. If anything, it looks like a net gain for them: I have now read the names of two people I had never heard of before, and all QC readers have been exposed to their likeness. The very online will talk about it, and I guess it's an important audience for vtubers. (to tell the truth, I wouldn't be too surprised if they had paid for such a spot: it's a select audience of what, hundreds of thousands?)

In general, it's rare to forbid the reproduction of someone's likeness in a comic. The one case I can think of was when an actress didn't wish to be associated with a certain comic because of other contents.

It's a bit more complicated with character designs. Those have actual copyrights associated with them, and, sometimes, they are registered as logos. So a copyright owner could sue anyone who uses his design just do discourage its use, and request monetary compensation. I could see it with a logo (the damage consists in diluting the association of the logo to its owner), but a lot less with something of this sort. It's not a parody, but it still looks like an admirer's innocuous shout-out.

[Wraith]

"...flower..."? I don't get the tag line on today's comic.

The name of another vtuber, I believe? Or a catchphrase that one of the two uses? Something like that, I don't care to look it up again. He's evidently spent some time watching them, at least long enough to pick up the in-jokes and memes.

I doubt that showing those two vtubers can be a problem. If anything, it looks like a net gain for them: I have now read the names of two people I had never heard of before, and all QC readers have been exposed to their likeness. The very online will talk about it, and I guess it's an important audience for vtubers. (to tell the truth, I wouldn't be too surprised if they had paid for such a spot: it's a select audience of what, hundreds of thousands?)

Absolutely, I wasn't trying to suggest that Jeph should be DMCA'd and his comic brought down over a cameo, nothing at all like that. It's harmless fanwanking, as far as I know. It's just that webcomics are very different now to what they were in 2005, and big brands are more keen to defend their imagery than ever. Hell, Penny Arcade got slapped with a C&D in *2003* for a comic about a children's toy, that the creators decided to defend, and this was back in the wild west of the internet when Fair Use and all the rest of it was far more open ended and untested. Doing it today feels very risky, and "I'm such a small-time creator that I didn't think you would find out" isn't the defence that it used to be

I could see it with a logo (the damage consists in diluting the association of the logo to its owner), but a lot less with something of this sort.

Like I said above, Hololive have a publicly available policy about fan-work, and it says that you're not allowed to use their images to make money as a business. It's quite unambiguous, and just a matter of whether or not they decide to do anything about it rather than whether or not they should be in QC at all.

[Vinyadan]

It's probably worth mentioning that time JJ made international news for similar reasons and a horse: https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-horse-website

[DaFlipp]

Hell, Penny Arcade got slapped with a C&D in *2003* for a comic about a children's toy, that the creators decided to defend, and this was back in the wild west of the internet when Fair Use and all the rest of it was far more open ended and untested.

I think there's a pretty big gulf of likelihood-of-legal-action between "Vtubers strolling through background" and "Strawberry Shortcake sadomasochistic pseudo-erotica".

[Willie the Duck]

I think there's a pretty big gulf of likelihood-of-legal-action between "Vtubers strolling through background" and "Strawberry Shortcake sadomasochistic pseudo-erotica".

Yeah, this does seem a little closer to borrowing Something Positive characters.

[Vinyadan]

"Flower" reminds me of two things: "Rosebud" and "FLOOOOOWERRR!!!"

[Mechalich]

Yeah, this does seem a little closer to borrowing Something Positive characters.

The key difference is the difference between another webcomic and a Japanese entertainment conglomerate. In particular, the baseline for a webcartoonist having their characters show up in someone else's comic is probably 'yay' while Hololive actually has an officially stated 'grrr....' policy. And in this case Jeph compounded the issue by specifically identifying the vtuber characters as opposed to just having two character walk past who just happen to starkly resemble them.

It's worth noting that Japan has a very large marketplace for self-published works using copyrighted characters, such as those appearing in anime, manga, and video games, being sold for profit as doujinshi. Such works are often sexually explicit in nature and given that Hololive's policy makes a lot of sense as a means of protecting its staff. The cameo appearance here is quite tame, but it is the kind of doujinshi-style appearance the policy is likely intended to prohibit.

[Delicious Taffy]

I really don't think they're gonna notice or care that some rando put their avatars in a webcomic. I assume they have actually-important things to worry about.

[The Glyphstone]

Copyright/trademark laws can be very odd, where leaving a breach undefended can sometimes be construed as permitting it. If protecting their IP is sufficiently important to them, which it sounds like it might be, it's not out of the question that they'd have some junior legal intern, or at least some sort of automated script-bot, that trawls for potential violations.

[Shadow of the Sun]

As a vtuber fan I appreciated this.

This definitely isn't the first time Jeph's featured vtubers as background characters, by the way. He's had gawr gura from hololive in the strip before.

[Gnoman]

The key difference is the difference between another webcomic and a Japanese entertainment conglomerate. In particular, the baseline for a webcartoonist having their characters show up in someone else's comic is probably 'yay' while Hololive actually has an officially stated 'grrr....' policy.

A much greater difference is that the strip featuring characters from Somthing Postitive was in response to one of several SP strips referencing QC.

[Lady_Coraline]

Copyright/trademark laws can be very odd, where leaving a breach undefended can sometimes be construed as permitting it.

That applies only to trademark, not copyright.

[Wraith]

Marten, you spent 1,000 strips sleeping with Dora, and before that you spent 500 strips wishing you were sleeping with Faye. Also, you kind-of went on a date with Emily, and Hannelore took you on a trip to her space station.

I know that the last 18 months have been busy for you, but that was absolutely a save, my friend.

[Wildstag]

I don't recall the "kind of went on a date with Emily", could you refresh my memory?

Also, I thought there was a comic where Dora expressed a dislike for the title "barista", but I could be wildly mistaken. However, there HAS to be a page where Marten expressed a "favorite" worker there, especially given his intimacy with Dora.

Honestly, the question just seems dumb.

[Wraith]

I don't recall the "kind of went on a date with Emily", could you refresh my memory?

After Padma left, Sam mentioned how no one would go for a walk in the forest with her any more, so Marten and Emily tagged along. It resulted in Emily getting bitten by a snake, Martin ripping his shirt for an impromptu tourniquet, and then Emily giving him a small kiss and saying that she thought he was very brave after Dora, Cosette and Faye made fun of him.

Very much a "kind of" date in the vaguest sense of the word, but he's never gone for a walk with Hannelore, or ripped his shirt up for Tai, so he must like her even if just as a caretaker

Honestly, the question just seems dumb.

There has been some suggestion on other forums that it's quite a manipulative question - 'testing' your boyfriend with questions about his ex's, or other girls that he finds attractive. Personally, I don't see that here - Claire has gone out of her way to be fair with Marten and not be 'too clingy' or to pry into his past without permission, and I think it was just tone-deafness on Jeph's behalf.

It's a dumb question. In the best case scenario, Marten lies and tells her that he's not found any of Coffee O Doom's staff to be attractive, when one of his first plots in the comic was him trying to work up the courage to ask Sara out.

[Wildstag]

There has been some suggestion on other forums that it's quite a manipulative question - 'testing' your boyfriend with questions about his ex's, or other girls that he finds attractive. Personally, I don't see that here - Claire has gone out of her way to be fair with Marten and not be 'too clingy' or to pry into his past without permission, and I think it was just tone-deafness on Jeph's behalf.

It's a dumb question. In the best case scenario, Marten lies and tells her that he's not found any of Coffee O Doom's staff to be attractive, when one of his first plots in the comic was him trying to work up the courage to ask Sara out.

I'm inclined to disagree about whether or not she's manipulative; at least towards her brother she is. The only example I can think of about prying into Marten's past involved Jeph forgetting details and having to immediately cover up his gaff. As far as interactions with Marten has gone, she doesn't seem to be problematic.

And yeah, dude clearly has a type. Every girl we've seen him on a date with so far has been a coffee shop employee to some degree. Seems almost retconny if accepted as true.

[Rodin]

There has been some suggestion on other forums that it's quite a manipulative question - 'testing' your boyfriend with questions about his ex's, or other girls that he finds attractive. Personally, I don't see that here - Claire has gone out of her way to be fair with Marten and not be 'too clingy' or to pry into his past without permission, and I think it was just tone-deafness on Jeph's behalf.

It's a dumb question. In the best case scenario, Marten lies and tells her that he's not found any of Coffee O Doom's staff to be attractive, when one of his first plots in the comic was him trying to work up the courage to ask Sara out.

I don't think it's Jeph being tone-deaf, it's Marten being a putz and Claire lightly ribbing him for it. He's trying to say "how's the new job" in a cutesy way, but he did it in a way that could be interpreted badly. Claire caught the implication and questioned it with a smile on her face. We've seen her use this type of humor before, when she acted shocked that Marten had dated Dora.

[Max_Killjoy]

Maybe we get to see Marten geek out about music and guitar playing, you know, that thing that used to come up semi-regularly.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Going back to his roots, then?