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|---|---|
| Author(s) | Mitch Clem, Joe Briggs |
| Website | MitchClem.com/NothingNice (cybersquatted); (archive at archive.org) |
| Current status/schedule | Inactive (since 2014) |
| Launch date | February 25, 2002 [1] |
| Genre(s) |
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| Followed by | San Antonio Rock City |
Nothing Nice to Say is a webcomic, touted as "The world's FIRST online punk comic", [2] created by artist Mitch Clem . It is sometimes abbreviated as Nothing Nice, NNTS or NN2S.
First launched online in February 2002, Nothing Nice To Say follows roommates Blake and Fletcher, while living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as they make fun of punk rock, punk rock fans, and just about everything relating to the punk subculture, including themselves. Although it follows a standard 3-panel webcomic setup of two roommates, one of whom is slightly off-the-wall, it was seminal for placing them in a punk setting.
During much of the comic's existence, Mitch used the space under the comic as his blog. Now his blog can be found at his LiveJournal (See Link Below).
Clem's blogs began to show that he was likely suffering bouts of depression. Because of this he was mocked on the comic's own discussion forum; the internet traffic for which had rapidly outgrown the traffic for the comic strip. This is allegedly one of the reasons that Mitch- somewhat unceremoniously – ended the comic in 2004. At this time, Mitch told fans he would be collaborating on a strip called Joe and Monkey with fellow webcomic artist Zach Miller.
Clem left Joe and Monkey before the series even launched, but did return to take over writing and illustration duties for the entire month of January 2005, at which point Mitch announced he would resurrect Nothing Nice in what would become the now familiar black and white format, as opposed to the original run, which was in color.
Updates slowed sometime after January 2006, when Clem began focusing his energy on a new autobiographical strip called San Antonio Rock City . Eventually, Nothing Nice was put on indefinite hiatus and SARC became Clem's main focus.
Mitch Clem stated that he was unopposed to bringing back Nothing Nice (though perhaps at a less frequent schedule), and stayed true to this statement when he brought it back on a weekly schedule on August 28, 2006. Updates ranged from sporadic to nonexistent for a while as the focus shifted from SARC to NN2S and back. Clem eventually quit San Antonio Rock City after breaking up with his then-girlfriend who served as the series' co-star, and turned his focus back to Nothing Nice, where it continued to update on a mostly regular thrice weekly schedule. Nothing Nice went back on temporary hiatus as Clem began work on another autobiographical strip, My Stupid Life. Nothing Nice to Say resumed on September 15, 2008, then was placed on hiatus since December 23, 2008, and resumed again on September 5, 2011 with a new co-writer, Joe Briggs.
One of the comic's main characters. He is named after Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker and Jets to Brazil fame (also has an obvious resemblance to Jawbreaker-era Schwarzenbach), and is a great fan of both bands. Tends to be the voice of reason of the two main characters. Besides Schwarzenbach bands, he is also a fan of pop-punk bands and even some indie rock bands. Played guitar in a band with Fletcher, called The Negative Adjectives. He has a shrine to Henry Rollins in his bedroom, something Fletcher was unaware of until September 13, 2006. Blake is considered by many fans to represent a sort of "parallel universe Mitch", or is at least modelled on the comic's author; the parallels between certain of their life events and their shared tastes and opinions are used as evidence for this.
Blake's bald-headed roommate. Did not originally have a name; instead he was named through a reader contest. Tends to come up with some fairly crazy and somewhat anti-social ideas, sometimes resulting in litigation. He is also sometimes attracted to irritating behaviors and habits simply for their ability to anger others, such as his taking up smoking. Often wears a band shirt that reads "BAND". Is a fan of 1980s hardcore punk. Played drums for The Negative Adjectives. Recently contracted a case of "pop punk" at a show. He is often a comic foil to Blake's role as straightman and the two most often provide the main thrust of the series' plotlines.
Originally a ska fan, he now listens to emo and vehemently denies having ever liked ska at all; this is plotted by the author to make fun of what he perceives to be the trend-hopping nature of most modern-day emo fans. Blames the female gender for most of his problems, even though they actually tend to be self-inflicted. Also seems to exude "whiny bitch pheromones" which make it impossible to stay around him for any longer time without resorting to physical violence. He started out 2007 by renouncing emo in favor of what he felt was less depressing pop-punk, but after buying the newest pop punk album (implied to be the album "Hospitals" by Off With Their Heads), he hanged himself in his apartment. His name is a reference to the comedian Emo Philips. [3]
An anthropomorphic gopher (refential to the strip's setting of the Twin Cities of Minnesota.) Very sarcastic, and at one time insulted people for spare change. According to the comic, has played bass for Screeching Weasel, roadied for Fifteen and secretly written songs for The Donnas. Played bass for The Negative Adjectives before he quit right before their first show. Cecil has apparently rejoined the band since Joe Banks (see below) joined. [4] Usually seen wearing a Quincy Punx shirt.
A vegan, hardcore-crust punk. The rest of the cast tends to walk on egg shells around him due to his veganism, as they're afraid they might upset him if he so much as touches an object that has been in contact with dairy products. He has been referred to as both "Charlie" and "Chris," an error that Clem has jokingly acknowledged.
A radical feminist (riot grrrl). Spends a lot of her time getting upset at Blake and Fletcher for allegedly objectifying female punk rock band members, yet started dating Alice only because a "strong lesbian stance" would improve her image as a feminist.
The comic's youngest character. He's a skater and tends to get made fun of by Blake and Fletcher, as they see most skaters as "corporate whores". He confused buttons of fashion companies with wearing "cool" buttons of punk bands.
In 2005, Nothing Nice To Say and Joe and Monkey had a crossover, featuring Joe, the titular hero of the latter, auditioning for Blake and Fletcher's band, The Negative Adjectives (after seeing a poster written by Fletcher proclaiming that the band needed no new members). Banks was accepted as the band's new singer and second guitarist and has since been featured in strips featuring the band performing.
San Antonio Rock City, or SARC, was an autobiographical webcomic about Mitch and his weekly exploits with then-girlfriend Victoria. This comic was updated consistently several times each week, eventually going daily, for approx 6 months, and featured several references to Nothing Nice, including a strip with cameos of Blake, Fletcher, Cecil, Joe Banks, and the Anarchist Fan. Mitch quit the series permanently after he and Victoria broke up in early 2007.
The Coffee Achievers originally started out as Nothing Nice story arc, but later turned into its own comic as a collaboration with Joe Dunn, from Joe Loves Crappy Movies. The cast is mostly the same as that of Nothing Nice, but with small alterations, and is not considered to take place in the same universe as Nothing Nice To Say.
The Coffee Achievers began a working relationship between Clem and Joe Dunn that has now developed into a partnership, with Dunn serving as Clem's go-to colorist for his prolific work creating concert fliers and album art. The two have also expressed plans to eventually team up again for Clem's long-planned post-apocalyptic saga "The Rain Dogs".
On February 19, 2008 Mitch announced on his MySpace blog and his Livejournal that Dark Horse Comics would be publishing the long-awaited NN2S book. The book would contain :
The book was released in October 2008. [5]
Mitch has also created original Nothing Nice comics for Razorcake Magazine, and for MySpace Dark Horse Presents, while strips from the web have been reprinted in countless fanzines.
Nothing Nice To Say was used along with Penny Arcade and American Elf as an example of comics using the web to create "an explosion of diverse genres and styles" in Scott McCloud's book Making Comics [6]
Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of post-hardcore and hardcore punk from the mid-1980s Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace. In the early–mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock and/or punk rock bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Weezer, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, bands such as Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from the burgeoning Midwest emo scene, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.
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Jawbreaker is an American punk rock band active from 1986 to 1996, and again since 2017. The band is considered to be extremely influential to the 1990s emo and punk genre with their "poetic take on hardcore," as cited by James Monger of AllMusic. Overall, critics have cited Jawbreaker as the best punk rock band of the 1990s.
Mitch Andrew Clem is an American cartoonist best known for his web comics Nothing Nice To Say, San Antonio Rock City, and My Stupid Life.
Dayfree Press was an online webcomic syndicate. Each Dayfree member had a special advertisement banner on their webpage that advertised the comics of another member-site. The ad was generated at random every time the page reloaded and sometimes showed an ad for the comics that were on the same webpage.
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Orange Rhyming Dictionary is the debut studio album by American rock band Jets to Brazil, released October 27, 1998 on Jade Tree. Following the break up of Jawbreaker, frontman Blake Schwarzenbach moved to New York City, and formed Jets to Brazil with bassist Jeremy Chatelain and drummer Chris Daly. J. Robbins was drafted in to produce the band's debut album at Easley Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. With Orange Rhyming Dictionary, Schwarzenbach moved away from the punk rock sound of Jawbreaker into indie rock and post-hardcore.
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Dear You is the fourth and final studio album by American punk rock band Jawbreaker, released on September 12, 1995 by DGC Records, their first and only release on a major label. The band broke up after the release.
24 Hour Revenge Therapy is the third studio album by American punk rock band Jawbreaker, released on February 7, 1994, through Tupelo Recording Company and Communion Label. Following the release of their second studio album Bivouac (1992), frontman Blake Schwarzenbach developed a polyp on his vocal chords. While on tour in Europe, he went to a hospital; upon returning to the United States, the band took up day jobs. Recording sessions for their next album were held at Steve Albini's house in Chicago, Illinois across three days in May 1993. After being disappointed by the mixes, three songs were recorded in a single day at Brilliant in San Francisco, California in August 1993.
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The Thorns of Life were a punk rock band from Brooklyn, New York. In October 2008, Blake Schwarzenbach, formerly of Jets to Brazil and Jawbreaker, revealed that he had started writing music for an "as-yet-unnamed group" with the drummer Aaron Cometbus and the bass guitarist Daniela Sea, formerly of the Gr'ups and Cypher in the Snow, but best known for a recurring role on television's The L Word. The name may come from Percy Bysshe Shelly whose poem Ode to the West Wind has the line "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!".
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Notable events of 2002 in webcomics.