According to Everyday Feminism’s Facebook page,
Christine Deneweth writes two different series of comics,
- Long, Bitter, Besides the Point (LBBTP) - a very generic and poor “so relatable XD” comic starring her fursona
- Everyday Feminism comics - these are poorly drawn comics made to teach readers about disabilities, race, gender, and other social justice topics
LBBTP:
EF:
There’s not much for me to say about LBBTP. As I already mentioned, it’s just a generic attempt at relatable humor. However, the stuff she draws for Everyday Feminism is another story.
If you ever wondered what Assigned Male would be like if it were drawn in MS Paint and had even less actual art, Christine Deneweth’s comics are exactly that. Sometimes panels have no illustrations and only text, or just one or two characters speaking over a simple background.
One "comic" she made has only the same re-drawn expression and panels of nothing but text; she even forgot to color in the character’s skin sometimes.
Deneweth also has schizophrenia, she has written several comics of how her self-insert deals with it.
I’m going to go over some of these comics and show what’s wrong with them.
Having a Mental Disorder is Not Trendy
This is actually very agreeable. We all remember when made-up mental illnesses were a big thing on tumblr. It actually is a problem when people try to normalize mental illness into some kind of gam-
Oh.
While that third panel is good advice, I don’t see what’s so important about memes. In fact, isn’t being able to relate to someone/something a good thing? Even though one may not have the mental illness, they can at least see where one is coming from, instead of just thinking they're weird or messed up.
“Socially awkward” isn’t even a psychological term. You can be socially awkward without having social anxiety, so her made-up example is completely irrelevant. On another note, is the reader supposed to feel bad for a fictional character who we only see in this one panel?
A friend of mine stated well in response to this, “I haven’t had access to medication for most of my life so far, I think how other people speak is the very least of my problems.” If Deneweth cares to actually help ill people (which she probably doesn’t), she should be looking into better ways for the mentally ill to get diagnosed and medicated.
Here’s What It Really Means to Be a Furry
I'm going to skip through this comic.
Those people actually aren't wrong about the furry stereotypes. As much as some furries don't want to admit it, furries usually get into the fandom through sexual attraction to anthropomorphic or cartoon animals. And when you have dogfuckers who get a lot of enabling and support, one has a very good reason to assume the furry fandom is not as safe and family-friendly as Christine and others want it to look like.
My biggest issue with this comic is that Deneweth completely ignores the rightful criticisms of the fandom, and pretends that the furry fandom as a whole is a safe and friendly space when it’s clearly not. Her art is also abhorrent here, and her drawing of Courage the Cowardly Dog is clearly traced.
Those people actually aren't wrong about the furry stereotypes. As much as some furries don't want to admit it, furries usually get into the fandom through sexual attraction to anthropomorphic or cartoon animals. And when you have dogfuckers who get a lot of enabling and support, one has a very good reason to assume the furry fandom is not as safe and family-friendly as Christine and others want it to look like.
My biggest issue with this comic is that Deneweth completely ignores the rightful criticisms of the fandom, and pretends that the furry fandom as a whole is a safe and friendly space when it’s clearly not. Her art is also abhorrent here, and her drawing of Courage the Cowardly Dog is clearly traced.
My Mental Disorder Is My Identity - So Please Stop Policing My Language Choices
Obviously, the first thing one will notice is how the first comic I mentioned in this thread was policing others for their language choices, thus making the entire point here hypocritical at best, but beyond that, this comic easily has some of the worst art of the bunch.
While the message here is again limited to Christine’s anger over what’s a minor issue at best, notice the serious lack of artistic skill in this comic. The fuck is going on with his hand in panels 7 and 8? He’s apparently being attacked by the claw.
This panel illustrates how nitpicky this supposed issue really is, they’re “reclaiming” the word from nobody in particular and in a way that’s not even grammatically correct. Why would someone be an “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Person”?
Another wall of text, we’re getting into broken record territory here with the criticism so I’d only like to point out that he’s for some reason “proud” of having schizophrenia, which is very odd. While someone would certainly be happy about being diagnosed, it’s weird to be proud of your disabilities. I would imagine a person would prefer to keep their medical problems between people they trust.
While the message here is again limited to Christine’s anger over what’s a minor issue at best, notice the serious lack of artistic skill in this comic. The fuck is going on with his hand in panels 7 and 8? He’s apparently being attacked by the claw.
This panel illustrates how nitpicky this supposed issue really is, they’re “reclaiming” the word from nobody in particular and in a way that’s not even grammatically correct. Why would someone be an “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Person”?
Another wall of text, we’re getting into broken record territory here with the criticism so I’d only like to point out that he’s for some reason “proud” of having schizophrenia, which is very odd. While someone would certainly be happy about being diagnosed, it’s weird to be proud of your disabilities. I would imagine a person would prefer to keep their medical problems between people they trust.
8 Misconceptions About Autism Debunked
This comic was written in March of 2016, the first misconception died at least a decade ago, so it’s pointless to bring it up here.
While it is true that some high-functioning autistic people would be fine with not being cured, since it may have benefited them, searching for a cure in itself is not offensive. I am sure the low-functioning autists would be more than happy to be cured. It should be noted that Christine probably doesn’t even think that high and low functioning autism exist, as shown later on in this comic.
Who says this?
Even if you stop saying “low functioning”, the level that an autistic person is at is going to be pretty obvious. Someone who can’t even talk is not going to be seen as a very functional member of society, regardless of what words you use to describe them.
Christine is literally advocating here for neglecting somebody’s disability and not helping them become functioning members of society, just so they don’t have to feel like they are wrong or abnormal.
This misconception has nothing to do with autism itself, but to do with social justice advocacy and allies. It’s irrelevant to the comic.
It’s actually really hard to get to know an autistic people when they aren’t taught how to communicate or function correctly, you know.
Overall, Christine's work is very short-sided, poorly drawn, and regressive. Considering that she is still on Everyday Feminism's payroll (or maybe lack thereof), we should be seeing more MS Paint abominations from her in the future.
