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It's apparently a "spiritual successor" to the System Shock series.

It's just the old issue of "What's objective? What's 'good'? What's a standard? What makes one opinion better than another?"

What I used to wonder about when I was a kid were album reviews. They always seemed so obscure. Like, they'd complain that an album didn't have enough humor. I just saw that again recently -- within the past week, RollingStone.com had a retrospective of Van Halen albums (Eddie, among other guitarists, was on the cover), and they liked Diver Down, and didn't like Fair Warning because it didn't have enough humor. And they said 5150 was "dull".

What the hell does that mean? Why does an album need humor? There are plenty of albums that have much less humor than Fair Warning. And what does it mean to call 5150 dull? I don't agree with that description, so does it mean anything? Is there some objective middle ground we could reach?

Anyway, by now I tend to disregard reviews like that that can't seem to elaborate.

But don't think that people can't explain what they mean by "well drawn". John K. seems able to communicate what he means. And it's definitely not "animated like Disney". He has often talked about examples of limited animation that he thought were good.

If you gotta do limited animation, use great drawings I always say.

Even if you don't agree or understand what TV Guide in particular means by "well-drawn", I don't believe for a second that you don't have your own opinions or standards. I don't buy this "everything is subjective" stuff. The Mona Lisa IS better than puke a four year old coughed up.

I mean, you can't possibly be an artist if you didn't have an opinion on what is good? Because if you didn't, then how would you make what you thought was good? Is this a good drawing of Honen?



Would you draw him that way? Would you be proud of it if you did? If not, why not? There must be reasons.

You're missing the forest for the trees. I never said anything about Ren and Stimpy being a standard for being well-drawn. I am saying there is meaning to saying something is well-drawn.

Mentioning John K. in no way turns the topic into Ren and Stimpy. He is a good person to mention in this subject because, like his own work or not, he is very opinionated on the subject of what is well-drawn, he has explained his opinions at length, he is knowledgeable about cartoons from the turn of the 20th century to now, he has given countless examples...

And, guess what? He rarely uses Ren and Stimpy as an example.

He also owns his own opinions. If he says something, he said it. If TV Guide says something, who said it? A freelance writer, maybe? Would their next freelance writer say something contradictory? When they critique a show, do they can what they're writing, or are they just trying to generate content because they need to publish a book once a week.

Yes, he does tend to stick with one particular medium, slapstick cartoons. So what? If there are things that make slapstick cartoons well-drawn, there are things that make photorealistic still-lifes well-drawn, there are things that make surrealist sketches well-drawn, there are things that make anything well-drawn. And sometimes, there might be common principles between those genres, if you can think abstractly.


As for the Honen "strawman", yes, there is a continuum of values from very bad to great. That's not a strawman. If you can distinguish between bad and okay, why not good and great?

I have a really good book on literature whose entire mission is to take inexperienced readers and try to cultivate them to the point that they can distinguish between bad and good literature, and then good and great. It's an enlightening book, but it's 1000 pages long; I'm not gonna be able to get its messages across to you in an internet post.