What Happened to Sinfest?

Perhaps this is more Pit material, but I feel the need to complain about the online webcomic, Sinfest. Seeing as I only started reading on the recommendation of a doper, I’m sure someone here will be a fan. In the past, Tat wrote about religion, sex, and various things affecting him. I’m not really philosophically on board with him, but it was always very heartfelt, and his characters are pretty fun.

For the last several months, he’s been getting on board with the elections. He obviously clearly hero worships Obama, which is fine, but he can’t even be bothered to write jokes anymore. The comics are on par with the absolute worst political cartoons – they read like parodies of the positions they hold, like in
Emotopia Needs Hope. He mixes it up with post-Ron Paul material railing on the US – politics, economy, and history*. The forums of the site definitely reflect the new development – there’s the odd person calling for armed revolt. It’s pretty creepy.

What happened? Tat obviously can still be funny, but he’s not even trying any more. I’m probably going to bite the bullet and stop reading soon, but I keep hoping he’ll get bored and move on, now that the election is over. No luck so far, though.

*Note that I’m Canadian, so it’s not like I’m personally offended. Actually, the “tics” link is kind of amusing, even if it’s dumb.

I gave up on Sinfest a couple of years ago.

I still read Sinfest occasionally, but it’s not on my list of comics to read every single day. I’ve always found it hit-and-miss; some days I laugh out loud, some days I shrug and move on. YMMV

I’ve been reading Sinfest religiously for years. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not so good, but I can’t remember it ever having more than passing references to current events; IIRC there was a 9/11 strip, but generally he stayed away from politics.

I’ve been really annoyed at how almost every strip the last few months has been related to the election (although I did find the “Palin as a pig” amusing). Like the OP, I’m hoping that now that the elections over he goes back to what he used to do. If he doesn’t, I may stop reading it entirely.

I’m a Sinfest fan, and I’ve really been enjoying the current political ones. The Uncle Sam/LAdy Liberty ones especially.

I still think Tat is funny.

And the Emotopia one? C’mon, that’s part of a whole occasional “X needs Y” thing that’s been running for years, now.

I’m tired of the political ones. Let’s get back to 'Nique and God and Satan and the rest of the characters I’ve come to love.

I think some of the politics strips were pretty funny. The Star Wars/Samakin maship, for example, was a hoot for me, as was the 1984-Apple-ripoff. And Slick beating the crap out of Wall street.

Ishida’s always been self indulgent, its part of the charm generally, IMO. Obviously, your mileage does vary.

That’s PILF, buddy.

Obviously, my mileage does. But even if you’re really, really on board with the political stuff (and I’m not), it’s hard to see the jokes. It’s like Mallard Fillmore for an extreme liberal.

ETA: MrDibble, good catch on Emotopia. Doesn’t make it funny, though. (Makes it explainable.) Really, “Barackstar” would be a wonderful piece of social commentary… if Tat didn’t mean it.

I blame the ‘lipstick on a pig’ dustup.

Oh, come now. Ishida is often obscure. I mean, what’s the joke here?. There’s a percentage of strips I don’t get at all, and I shrug and read the next one. I’ve found that Ishida makes up for eventually, usually in spades (hmm).

Except of course, its funny. Maybe your woosh meter is set too low, but the Barakstar stuff is making fun of Obama’s Messiah image, which means its making fun of his followers. That’s not funny? Hannity thinks it’s a hoot these days.

I saw this one a month ago. I liked it so much that I’ve been reading the strip ever since.

I thought it was always a political cartoon. I like it so far. The one yesterdaywas pretty good.

I liked yesterdays too, but it took me a few seconds to realize that Bush was singing Bush songs. And that yeah- Bush does kinda suck (the band)…

I don’t think the calligraphy series is supposed to be funny, as such. It’s more artistic noodling than anything else.

:sigh: This conversation has been going on on Tat’s own discussion forum.

What can I say? It’s Tat. This is the guy who made up a feminist dystopia called The Matriarchy, does bizarre mythic mashups with Jesus, Buddha, & the Devil, & created Churchbot.

Shortly before he began the politics kick (with “Imperil The World”), Tat had introduced Death as a new character, but sort of ran out of stuff to do with that. Otherwise, he was doing jokes about Slick’s dick having a mind of its own & meta jokes that played with form as element. How far was that going to take him?

I’m glad he’s found a well of ideas. I like his Barackstar figure.

I love the dragon. I hate the political crap. I am surrounded by it, bombarded with it, everywhere I go; I’d just like to see a funny cartoon sometimes, you know?

God playing with kanji. He takes the artistic elements of the clouds and the house in the first panel and morphs them into 天 (ten, heavenly) 国 (goku, country), which means “heaven.” So, the “after party” bit is a reference to the afterlife promised in Christianity, when you get to kick it at God’s place. Mostly artistic noodling, but he does make some bilingual puns that are kind of amusing if you know the characters.

I used to read Sinfest a lot, caught up with his output, and then he didn’t update for a few months. I tried picking it up again sometime last year and it just didn’t work for me anymore. He had a lot of good stuff, but it was hit or miss sometimes.

I was enjoying the politcal stuff at first, but then, as I got fed up with the whole election thing, I just wanted it to END!