Examples of the lies and double standards behind the facade of the infamous Tom Preston/Andrew Dobson(NOTE: the comments and opinions stated in Submissions and Asks are not necessarily my own)MASTERPOST
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Dobson Might Be Back(Again)
I’ve gotten a few Asks about this as well as seeing people talking about it on Dobson’s KF thread, but it appears that Dobson may have come back online, and for a few months now. I’m currently reluctant to believe it/talk about it, since not only did we have a fairly recent attempt to make people believe he was back, but also(if this is him) he isn’t actually doing anything that got him his reputation in the first place. The account has just been posting animations and given some advice without attacking anyone or insulting anyone. And the animations do show effort being put into them.
If this account is actually Dobson, then it appears he finally learned to be professional and not cause drama online. And again, if this is actually Dobson, I’m reluctant to just start sharing the new account information and drawing old attention to him if he is actively trying to not cause problems/move on.
And this new “Dobson is back” seems much more legitimate than the last attempt.
TLDR Dobson might actually be back this time, but I won’t be talking about it too directly unless he starts behaving like he did before/fully confirm it’s him, because he does appear to have changed for the better if it is him.
Just wanted to address it.
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Check out this review on Alex ze Pirate done by @popculturebuffet
Pirate Month IV: The Adventures of Alex Ze Pirate Life at Sea: I was Happier When I Didn't Know Who Andrew Dobson Was
Godammit Kev. Just Goddammit.
Welcome back me hearties to pirate month, our celebration of all things piratey! Well celebrating is a strong word for today's subject.
Most of you reading this probably know the author of today's comic Andrew Dobson. Here in these waters there were even whole blogs the biggest of which @hypocrisyofandrewdobson was a big help for the review with his many posts on this series helping explain a lot. My other major source was thegamerfrommars two hour video essay on the man, which made the comic come off even worse in some area's we'll get to. It was one of the few video essay's I could find and the most comprehensive, a lot of it coming from hypocricsyofandrewdobson. So most of you are probably at least aware the man existed and the kind of human trainwreck he is.
I was blisfully unaware when I agreed to this. Yeah despite being online all the time, and especailly in a period where Dobson would've been active I hadn't heard of the guy. I do think I saw him on twitter once in a blue moon, but given once in a blue moon was also how often I was on twitter (and bluesky), I pretty much missed the guy's period of infamy. I had read Brentalfloss the comic but honestly had forgotten that even happened till researching this review. It was a pretty weird idea in the first place as brent was better known for fun with lyrics parodies and tributes to various games, all pretty good stuff and not having lore or even recurring characters. Not saying you need those, but in a 2000's and 2010's filled with youtubers doing that why pick the funny song man.
So for those like me who were blisfully unaware
RUN
If you failed to heed my warning, then that's on you and we can continue. Andrew Dobson was a cartoonist in the 2000's and 2010's. This is a period of webcomic history i'm well aquanited with: I read a LOT of webcomics as a teen and young adult and still have several I love dearly. I wouldn't be doing a massive retrospective on John Allison's print work giant days if I also didn't love the guy's other works. I got back into reading Penny Arcade recently, I adored girls with slingshots, enjoyed Shortpacked, i'm a huge fan of Something Positive and I was a fan of PVP at one point. So i've seen or binge read a lot of the greats of the time.
Dobson wanted to be one. He wanted to go the distance, to get a career in making comics. He wanted to be in the room where it happens. He tried a career in print first that sputtered a bit, before he hit success with Alex Ze Pirate, later following that up with Brentalfloss The Comic and So You're a Cartoonist? a comic that was a mixed of autobiographical pieces and commentary on pop culture.
The problem was that Andrew was incredibly thin skinned. He refused to take any constructive criticism and any different opinion like say, liking Anime while he didn't anymore, was lambasted and strawmanned. He spent most of his time in his later internet years on twitter picking fights, refusing to ever admit he was wrong. There were times he was genuinely picked on like being sprayed with a spray bottle by some dickhead at a convention, but largely he responded to backlash by grabbing a shovel and going deeper, all while never realizing why people were tired of him and that for every troll who just wanted a new LOLCOW to mock endlessly, there were also people who were just sick of his shit.
He wracked up quite a few public embarassments: He had an infamous strip where he white knighted for a power girl cosplayer being harassed that he said was based on real life.... then admitted it wasn't when people tried to find proof it was to mock him further. He accidently insulted Zelda Williams mourning her father. He constantly tried to get women to like him on twitter. Eventually the harassment, dwindling money and everything caused him to leave. He tried coming back this year, but despite apparently being in therapy, good for him I certainly need it, did not consider that this announcement would still get shit after all this time. He may come back some day and if he does, I hope he's in a better place.
Dobson's story is honestly just.. sad to me. He's an asshole, sure. But he's one I easily could've been: I too wanted to be a creative at first to help fill some of the voids inside, I once thought twitter was a place to meet women, I wanted to be loved because I hated myself, I felt lost at college, and in adult life despite working a job I genuinely loved, often feel isolated. I sometimes take crticism personally despite wanting it to grow.
The thing is I have some self awarness: I've realized having a thing you want dosen't fix your life, only you can. That you have to be respectful to women and realize they aren't there to be your love intrest, that criticism can be helpful, and that picking random fights with strangers dosen't make you feel better. i stopped internet comment complaning as much for that reason. I sometimes struggle to not be defensive, but i'm genuinely trying. It wasn't easy to write this paragraph, to be this vunerable.. but sometimes you just gotta be. You have to grow if you want to be at least a little less miserable and andrew just didn't and I wish he did...
Now i've gotten that painful backstory out of the way, we can talk about the comic itself. Adventures of Alex Ze Pirate isn't good
What it is is intresting. Alex is a comic that could work: It's a sitcom in a genre that hasn't done much sitcoming: Our Flags Mean Death, the Pirates! books and film, all fit , but the mix of adventure and a bunch of misfits riffing on each other is rife with potetial. The day to day life of a pirate could be a lot of fun and there are some gags that either work or are okay. While dobson gets shit for his art, it's more just okay and works fine for the story. Not a glowing endorsment but a place to start.
The problem is that the core of it is poisioned: the characters are mostly unlikeable, there's some truly awful ideas that needed to be written out entirely, and a bucketload of unfortunate implications. I can't put this off any longer so let's dive into Alex Ze Pirate
For context i'm reviewing the second trade. THe first is still lost media, but the second is up on internet archive. There's also a pilot comic he did, the first version of these characters that i'll review next year. I can only take so much.
Anyways the first thing I was greeted with was something I dearly miss in comics: the character intro page. I'ts something trade paperbacks used to do: give you a bunch of character profiles so if this wasn't the first volume you picked up you could catch up. I honestly miss them. DC Comics was really good at this in the 2000's
It was geninely intresting and helpful. This character page is helpful... but also a lot. A LOT. To give you an idea here's the first page. Just the very first page I encountered.
Yeah as you can imagine I was afraid for what else would be there. So to unpack this amazon warehouse full of uncomfortable let's start with the gay curse.
You might be wondering how the main character got such a specific stupid curse. I might wonder too as it's never explained and despit having read all three versions of Alex and minoring in dobsonology, the Crimes of Andrew Dobson dosen't either.
Out of universe, it's no less stupid but does at least get explained: Alex early on dressed more masculine and had a buzzcut, hence the gay men hitting on her gag. When he redesigned her for this go round, that gag no longer made sense with her current design. So instead of throw it out he just.. gave her a curse that makes men and women hit on her. He eventually phases out in this very volume, having her use a wish fish to undo it but I get the sense it was less "Shit this might be offensive" and more "Eh it's ran it's course".
The gag obviously raises a lot of questions: why does the curse not work on the main cast? why does it make everyone see her as a manbut only gay men and straight women hit on her? How does it affect bi or pansexuals? Did Dobson know bisexuals existed yet? I didn't think he did at all till I found out he was a korrasami stan at one point but i'm betting he didn't yet.
The gay curse can at least be ignored. What can't.. is Atea. Atea.. is a sexual predator. And the strip's only black character, and a rat person because this concept started as space pirates but Dobson never updated the character design or world to reflect this. The comic dosen't treat her like one but she gropes Alex, comes on to her even when Alex has made it clear she is not interested, and takes advantage of situations where Alex is naked or she can make her wear less clothes. She's essentially the worst traits of every anime stalker pervert character, only even worse as she's never called out. You can probably guess why.
Yeah it's been theorized Andrew is into Yuri, and judging by the way he stages the characters their relationship comes off this way. Atea isn't written as a perverted stalker because she's like say Blitzo from helluva boss where it's not supposed to be a healthy behavior and while played for laughs at times, was never something anyone in universe thought was acceptable and at most tolerated. I'm not saying Helluva dosen't have issues in how it portrays BLitz obession with Moxxie and Millie, it do, but it never fetishises his obession. Atea's treatment of Alex comes offf as a thin excuse for fanservice while continuing the VERY harmful sterotype that queer people are predatory. And yet Andrew props her up showing off cospplay and having well.. this strip.
Lesbian Kick is one of the few catchphrases Dobson managed to get to catch on. Mildly but it apparently did for a while because out of context it's a pretty mid strip about a lesbian kicking a homophobe and winning miss america while some hellbeast thinks it involved jalpenos for some reason. In context it's that but as done by a sex offender. So.. why it even caught on enough he thought he could sell merch I really don't know. Also funny how she's only against injustice when it's not sexual assault or slave labor.
Speaking of which let's talk about Sam. Sam is the cabin boy and called a "lowly slob" despite being both pretty well kept and the only one on the crew I don't hate. His relationship with everyone else can be summed up in one panel
Sam is the team's designated whipping boy: anything humiliating he does and most of the comedy that isn't sexual harassment falls on him. Alex treats him like nothing, eats his food, and generally forgets he exists unless she needs something, Atea just kinda forgets he exists and Talus... I have not explained Talus
Talus is a weird furry carpet you've seen who says random things and serves as the team's wacky guy aka the one you want them to punt into a volcano. He has an obession with nails. There's also peggy the pirate, aka captain peggy, Sam's uncle who has all peg legs.. which both spongebob and family guy already did better. He apparently is another sex offender, but only shows it off in one strip.
Sam is the only member of the team I don't hate and tha'ts mostly because I feel horrible for him. For starter's.. he's a slave. Yeah his backstory, which the comic brings up, is that Alex tried to buy him then kidnapped him to save money. Even when being bought as property he has no dignity. Atea and Mouthface were suprised by this but never bring it up. Their pissed but like.. not enough to actually leave Alex for her bullshit after this or tell sam what happened.
I was relived that Alex didn't seem to have a crush on sam and that Dobson wasn't doing the "she's only mean to him because she likes him" thing... but research proved nope, it's exactly that. So the main love triangle of the trip is an abusive stalker, an abusive slavemaster, and her abused target of affection and abuse.
I get the sense all of this is due to Dobson trying to imitate the anime he grew up with: Atea is trying to be the funny sexually agressive character, Sam the male butt monkey, Alex the tsudere who despite abusing the protaganist loves him and Peggy the master roshi old man sex maniac. The thing is.. none of this was healthy even then, and it's only gotten more and more gross with time. Of all the things to take from anime and manga, all the great art, characters, exaggerated comedy.. why did he choose the worst parts, the kinds of things I assume he railed against later. Who uses a medium as inspiration only to take all the worst parts? It's utterly baffling.
Speaking of which we have our main arc where sam ACTUALLY stand sup to Alex when he finds an amulet in the possesion of a lolcat pirate. While the lolcat part of that is so dated it hurts even for the time it came out, I do like that the crew just casually tie the cat pirates up because.. their cats. Had their been more gags like this, I might not have been as hard on this.
But instead Alex snaps at him and is pissed he you know.. did what she does to him every day and he decides to leave. Not because of the abuse but because he has to say goodbye to his surrogate sister. See the orphanage he was in got destoryed, as our pirate crew finds out when they follow sam and he gives a sad, soapy speech about how he's sad he missed her and never got to tell her where he went, but his being kidnapped was a good thing because he survived and how he has a "new family now"
Yeah he's apparently doing okay, does a celebration for them coming back and is welcomed back.. then promptly given the duty of pretending to be atea so uncle peggy can try to grope him so he'll actually do his chores
The other full stories in the comic are shorter but a bit better as they play more into the comedy aspect. The first is the best part of the comic: Alex raids a villiage, with a little girl figuring out she's conning them... and it turns out it's a con within a con: Alex seemingly gets shot.. but turns out faked it with a tomato having dodged the actual shot while everyone else cleaned everyone out. THe girl actually figured that out... but Alex saves her life when the two scrap. Alex may be a lot of things, but she liked the kids moxie.
And this.. may be what's most infuriating. Theirs parts of Alex Ze Pirate that aren't bad, that show genuine potetial that had Andrew got his head out of his ass and slowly weaned out the bad parts, this could've worked. Instead the reboot that's sadly nowhere online was more focused on assuring us that "Alex is bi! She and sam are in a polyamory! She actually wants atea! This is all healthy!" than making a good story. I dont' mind changing the dynamics to not be a shit show but it's disappointing that he wasted a good idea, instead making pirate revenge of the nerds.
The other story has them find a fish that grants wishes. Atea uses it for sexual harassment
And Alex uses it to end the gay curse. They end up all deciding to save their last wishes on a truce, but then Talus cooks the fish and spends the ending getting chased around.

I wish I had more to say but there just.. isn't much there. What jokes are there just aren't that funny or memorable. I read this yesterday and already I forgot most of it when going to get images for this. It's got a simple good center.. but the rest of it is just boring. I've seen all this before and most of where i'd seen it was either bad or eventually evolved past all this. Dobson as a flawed, sad person who needed help and to get his head out of his ass was more interesting than his work which is just a boring 1999 webcomic somehow made a decade later and with less effort. He apologized for it..but in a vauge way that said nothing and simply said "I tried for representation right? That counts". It CAN, but in this case no. You made your only gay rep a sexual harasser, the only gay content yuri fanservice designed for you and you alone, and didn't actually care to refine the characters, just try and say "See I was woke all along it's the children who are wrong. I'm gaslighting you. Is it working? Will it work if I tell you i'm doing it? Will it?"
It didn't and I can see why Dobson disappeared: he refused to accept he was ever wrong. the only thing he owned up to was doing inflation art. He just could never fully apologize or grow, realize he'd made mistakes and that's why I pity him so much. He was an asshole.. but he had actual potential he just refused to craft into something great and as much as learning about him worried me... i've realized the one thing that thankfully and merficully fully seperates us: I actually WANT to get better. That even without feedback I TRY to make reviews better, try to do better, try to see why it's not working. I try and sometimes that's all you can do and it's something Dobson failed at here.. and I suspect failed at a lot.
Thank you for reading and if you read this please, consider joining my patreon or substack if you have the means. A dollar a month helps and 5 gets you a review of your choice each month.
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Now before anyone says anything, they apparently only know about Dobson from these three strips alone.

Still, it’s very funny to go through the replies and retweets and see just how many people point out why absolutely wrong this is.
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So where exactly did Dobson say he wanted to be an “idea guy” for Disney? I’m just curious where he got that line of thinking and where he thought he was confident enough to say that.
A DeviantART journal where he was talking about a troll that had apparently really pushed his buttons.
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Im reviewing a piece of Alex ze pirate soon and I was wondering where you got the pile of strips you have. All I can find is one trade on archive.org
It’s kinda a pain in the ass to click through, but the best I can offer is the Wayback Machine’s archive.
#andrew dobson#tom preston#alex ze pirate#internet archive#wayback machine#adobsonartworks#adobsonart#ask#popculturebuffet
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I was watching Creepcast (a podcast between youtuber Wendigoon and cartoonist MeatCanyon.) and they brought up the Zelda Williams incident. Even though they didn't mention Dobson by name, they talked about what happened and both talked about how fucked up it was. So... YEARS later he's still getting talked about for that incident.
The Legend of Dob will never die.
#andrew dobson#tom preston#meatcanyon#calm thy tits#wendigoon#adobsonartworks#adobsonart#ask#fingerdownthebookspine
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Isn't it kinda funny seeing there's been an uptick in Dobson fan art this past few weeks?
I guess that TGFM video got people talking about him again.
I absolutely love the middle finger being Big Ben. That’s some extra hilarious effort.
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I don't understand why the Gamerfrommars video has made people feel sympathetic towards dobson. Like other videos covering Dobson, i thought it showed most of his problems were self-inflicted.
I think some people only watched the first part when they had those feelings of sympathy, where it’s mentioned Dobson was teased a lot growing up. Which I can understand, but you also have to remember that it’s Dobson making those claims, and his reliability is suspect at best.
It could also just be that some people who mock Dobson are considered “bad people”, so others will immediately side with the ones the “bad people” are mocking.
There’s a number of reasons, really, but I do think the more you learn about Dobson, the less sympathy you feel for him.
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sorry if this is a dumb question, but why did dobson spend all that time erasing those giraffe drawings when he apparently had a bunch of commissions to finish?
Because he viewed it as a blow to his ego, and his ego was way more important to him than actually drawing what he said he would.
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So how come Dobson never thought of actually applying to Disney or Dreamworks or more realistically, a smaller animation company or work in an advertising agency or as a graphic designer? He had initial talent. It can be an actual way to earn money while keeping his skills developing and learning along the way?
He only wanted to work at Disney making animated movies as an “idea guy”. And because Disney stopped making 2D animated films about the same time he got his degree, he decided the degree was worthless and never tried to get an animation job anywhere else.
Because it was Disney movies or nothing, apparently.
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Did something happen ?
Nothing I’m aware of. And that tweet is the only use of the hashtag.
Maybe the recent video has new people feeling sorry for him????
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Unconfirmed. His brother left his job and also shut down his social media accounts around the same time, so it’s believed it was in-part or related to Dobson.
You know, I genuinely thought that Dobson left the entire Internet in 2020. I don't know why, but I thought he left the Internet earlier than that, like in 2016 for some reason.
He did leave the internet fully in May of 2020(aside from being seen in YouTube comments a month later), but it’s understandable you would think he’d left around that time. Around 2015-2016, he was barely posting anything online at all, mainly just posting 3D assets on his Patreon. Ironically enough, it was Donald Trump getting elected the first time that not only got him active online again, but also got him drawing as well.
Yes, really.
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You know, I genuinely thought that Dobson left the entire Internet in 2020. I don't know why, but I thought he left the Internet earlier than that, like in 2016 for some reason.
He did leave the internet fully in May of 2020(aside from being seen in YouTube comments a month later), but it’s understandable you would think he’d left around that time. Around 2015-2016, he was barely posting anything online at all, mainly just posting 3D assets on his Patreon. Ironically enough, it was Donald Trump getting elected the first time that not only got him active online again, but also got him drawing as well.
Yes, really.
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Credit to @grokouic for finding the video.
youtube
Do you have the link for that one super loud ALL OF THE DAY BRO video? For some reason it isn't coming up when I search for it and I'm worried it might've been taken down 😰
Not sure if this is the original one, but…
youtube
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I think a lot of people are missing the fact that he was bullied in his early life which shaped his worldview. From his pov people are constantly harrasing him and he never gets a break, that would cause anyone bitterness. It's not the incidents on their own but the fact that they are constant, which has built up over time, that has led to his ego formation, which admittedly is very fragile and reactive. Altho much like how his circumstances don't change, so doesn't his mindset.... But I genuinely think he isn't the worst of critters out there, just someone with low social awareness and loud opinions. I feel like the hate he got is a bit excessive. Btw, dunno if this blog is still active heh. I recently came across a video about him, and that's why I learned about him lol. ( *reads down below* LOL I'm one of the clueless anons that came from Gamer From Mars video )
The thing about Dobson is that yes, he may have been bullied some growing up and that could have made him jaded, but at the same time he’s also admitted to embellishing his stories of his childhood.
Not to mention a lot of how he talks about his childhood makes it sound less like a poor kid being picked on and bullied for not being more masculine or whatnot, and more a average kid who had a major superiority complex or something, the type of kid who acted as if he was smarter/better than everyone else and constantly looked down his nose at the other kids, but didn’t actually have an massive talent or skill to warrant the belief was was smarter/better.
Essentially, I can understand people feeling sorry for Dobson, but the deeper you go into the stuff that went on with him, the less sympathy you start to feel for the guy.
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Wait, did he really compared an actress with the monster from "the goonies" movie" ?
That one was new to me too, but he did have a screengrab of the tweet in the video, so I guess so.
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Do you have the link for that one super loud ALL OF THE DAY BRO video? For some reason it isn't coming up when I search for it and I'm worried it might've been taken down 😰
Not sure if this is the original one, but…
youtube
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