I don't rank comics by star ratings, but I do sort them into categories based on how I perceive them.
But for your convenience when browsing reviews by category:
What a Find! - Comics with special and unique characteristics that enthralled me, and which I can whole-heartedly recommend to others.
Place of Interest - An enjoyable comic that while wasn't earth-shattering and might have some flaws, is a worthwhile read if you have some time to spend.
Lost in Transit - A comic that has both positive qualities that might endear it to readers, and negative qualities that might drive them away. It's like Marmite, either you like it or hate it, there is no in-between.
Weekend Day Trip - A comic that was not really bad, might have been quite enjoyable to read but was lacking on the "memorable" front. A read-through is an entertaining way to spend a few hours, but ask me about it after a long time and I might need a few minutes to remember I read it.
Under Development - A comic that is too new to be evaluated properly, so contents of review may be inaccurate later on.
Tourist Trap - Comics that I did not enjoy and cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone.
Showing posts with label Lost in Transit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lost in Transit. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Postcards #2: Carribean Blue
Comic: Carribean Blue (http://www.katbox.net/cblueen/)
By: Ronaldo Rodrigues
Welcome to another episode of Postcards. Today I am going to look at another comic request:
Hi, I'm the artist behind the Caribbean Blue webcomic, a full color (save for guest pages), weekly comic, located at http://www.katbox.net/cblueen/. I came across your comic review site and I was hoping you guys would consider me for a review.
Thanks for your time, I look forward to any feedback you can provide!
Ron
Every type of reader has their own particular biases when it comes to the type of comics they want to read. I know I certainly do. My tastes tend towards story-oriented comics with good characterization, original world building and sophisticated plots, and the occasional witty humour comic though I find even the best of them grow slightly stale after a while.
However, on occasion I do read comics that fall out of that particular "comfort reading zone", as a matter of fact, one of the reasons I started this blog is to get myself to read comics out of that aforementioned comfort zone..
"Carribean Blue", I have to admit, falls out of my comfort reading zone. It involves manga-style catgirls, a lot of fanservice and is rather light hearted. I have however, fallen head over heels in love with comics that weren't in my comfort reading zone before, so like they say, proof of the pudding is in the eating.... so let's see how this goes.
In keeping with my policy of being ruthlessly honest, I will say if I hadn't been asked to review this comic, I probably wouldn't have continued reading it as far as I did due to the overwhelmingly jarring intro. I would have given up within the first 6 pages or so.
From the very first page of the comic I felt as though the I was having a whole bunch of main characters shoved in my face. I hadn't even managed to get the names or adjust to the fact they were catgirls, or "Nekocats" when the comic immediately started on introducing even MORE characters and a epic prophecy plot of sorts. I couldn't help but thinking rather resentfully: "Oi, you haven't given me a reason to even CARE about your main characters and I'm supposed to care about whatever else these new characters are?!"
"I feel a little overwhelmed by all this, Kensington..."
It doesn't help that the main characters get less of an intro than the secondary ones. It could be that this comic is a sequel to another one, at least I got the feeling I had started a book in the middle and was supposed to know the backstories of all the main characters at this point. At any rate, I found it very hard to "get" into the comic, particularly as the plot has serious problems in terms of consistency. (So the protagonists are catgirls, which seems a normal thing for them, till they get to their holiday island, where they are something like legends due to a prior catgirl saviour heroine. But there is another catgirl there, and for some reason the townspeople don't trust the other catgirl... and there's a prophecy about a bell that the catgirl heroine had left... you get the idea. Or rather, you don't... which is the problem.)
The lack of coherence in the story intro is a pity, because the full colour art is quite pretty in the later pages (although I prefer the black and white screentone ones more). There is a some cute characterization and humour in there, but without a solid narration and plot to build upon, they lose much of their impact.
Generally I don't recommend backtracking, but I would probably recommend a prologue or something to make the introduction less info-dumpish. Carribean Blue might have promise and a story worth reading behind all its flaws, but to be honest... as much as I tried to keep reading, I lost interest by the third chapter. Sadly, a story is only as good as how well it is told. Without a good intro to hook them in, most readers won't be staying around long enough to find out whether it is or not.
The lack of coherence in the story intro is a pity, because the full colour art is quite pretty in the later pages (although I prefer the black and white screentone ones more). There is a some cute characterization and humour in there, but without a solid narration and plot to build upon, they lose much of their impact.
Generally I don't recommend backtracking, but I would probably recommend a prologue or something to make the introduction less info-dumpish. Carribean Blue might have promise and a story worth reading behind all its flaws, but to be honest... as much as I tried to keep reading, I lost interest by the third chapter. Sadly, a story is only as good as how well it is told. Without a good intro to hook them in, most readers won't be staying around long enough to find out whether it is or not.
Friday, August 1, 2008
35th Leg: Kristy Versus The Zombie Army
Comic: Kristy Versus The Zombie Army
By: David Tekiela
Setting and Elements: Surreal Reality, Modern-Day
Content Type: Horror, Action, Adventure
Art Medium: Inks, Digital Colour
Art Style: Cartoonish, Manga influence is heavy.
Is About: A girl named Kristy who hunters Zombies. And other evil things.
Website: http://kristyvsthezombiearmy.com/
Frequency: Fridays
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The layout of the page is neat and professional. It's black, and I love the teaser image for the latest page.
I really am forcing myself to keep my expectations low for this comic (this is based on its concept). After the phenomenal Dr.McNinja, I'm bound to compare whatever stop I make after that unfavourably against it, and I do not want to do that unfairly. I know... I'm human, I'm biased no matter how I try not to be, but that doesn't mean I stop trying.
From the title of the comic I'm morbidly curious on whether I'm going to be disappointed or not. Every superhero/horror comic nowadays seems to have the obligatory army of undead zombies and hero/ine battling them. I've reviewed a few in my past journeys. I may have been away from webcomics for almost 3 years but I'm still jaded to that concept thank you very much.
So if I am THIS pessimistic why did I even come here?
Well, Dr. McNinja recommended it by linking it, that's why. That, and I really want to see if this creator can bring in something fresh and new to a concept that has been worn threadbare. You never know. Besides, it's part of the Dayfree Press, so I assume there must be something!
And with that note, I clicketh the archive button...
The Concept:
Kristy is the daughter of two apparently famous heroes who hunted zombies, and I presume, other forces of evil. She attends the Nightshade University of Higher Learning, a school for Hunters of Zombies and such stuff. The comic follows her adventures as she follows her parent's legacy.
The Art:
The art for KVTZA starts off shaky, as most comics are wont to do. I really like the use of color in the strips, especially how it felt like it wasn't colour slapped on to black and white art. I was sorry to see them desaturate into black-and-white in the later pages.
The Concept:
Kristy is the daughter of two apparently famous heroes who hunted zombies, and I presume, other forces of evil. She attends the Nightshade University of Higher Learning, a school for Hunters of Zombies and such stuff. The comic follows her adventures as she follows her parent's legacy.
The Art:
The art for KVTZA starts off shaky, as most comics are wont to do. I really like the use of color in the strips, especially how it felt like it wasn't colour slapped on to black and white art. I was sorry to see them desaturate into black-and-white in the later pages.
The art style is distinctive, a cross between cute-cartoony with a lot of influence from manga, particularly in the over-exaggerated expressions whenever any of the characters have some strong emotion. Sometimes this is a good thing, but when used wrongly and overused in particular, it stops being effective and becomes annoying.
I have to say I really do not like a lot of the character designs. The protagonist Kristy in particular, suffers from a very bland design. Partially due to this, I, as a reader, was absolutely unable to garner any semblance of liking or interest in her, which is a portent of doom for any webcomic.
I couldn't help noticing a trend... The objects David seems to excel at drawing are anything other than humans. The Master Panda is well done, the Rock Person, Oswald is downright adorable... but when I see the lackluster human depicted next to them, it just doesn't gel. To further stress this point, I cannot help but notice whatever shortcomings the artist might have in drawing people, he is more than capable when it comes to backgrounds and scenery. There were quite a few pages where I just stopped reading and was amazed and how beautifully and artistically simple some of his background work is.
The Writing:
...confuses me. It infuriates me because there is so much of it and so little substance at the same time. Most of all, it drives me nuts because it doesn't compliment the art, instead it barges in, overwhelms and smothers it.
I think there's a story behind this... and there might be a plot somewhere, I'm just trying to make sense of it.
I can say without any hesitation that the writing is the very glaring weak point of the comic. In fact I have a dilemma because anything I write about the writing would be qualified to go in the "Problems" section.
Anyways, I will detail the problems with writing here, and any that are in the realm of both art and writing I will pop into the section after this.
Let's start with characterization. The eponymous Kristy is supposed to be a headstrong, independent, courageous girl who has reformed and now dedicated to hunting down the evil zombies. Every now and then a secondary character mentions how special she is, but the problem is from the point of view of this reader she doesn't do anything that seems worthy of the respect given to her. She talks to much, whines too much, thinks too little, monologues too much...
..gawd, don't get me started on the monologuing. This had me pulling my hair out at one point. For some reason Kristy feels that it is necessary to recap in a monologue, the events of the last few pages every few pages, ala old newspaper comics. If she doesn't do it, the narrator does it for her. And it will always be in this cheesy-advert epic sounding wall-of-text.
Unfortunately this is not a newspaper comic, it's a webcomic . When you read this in one shot it's not only redundant... it's absolutely a chore. And the word "chore', let me remind you... rhymes with "bore".
Back to the characterization... my other bone to pick with it is it's also inconsistent. You have an apparently bad-ass Kungfu Panda Master (Oh come on you knew that was coming) whom the writer spends time to set up and how much of a zombie killing machine he is. Yet he gets taken out in an embarrassingly cliched "I throw myself in front of you to take the blow for you" anti-climax. Arrrgh... What's the point then?
There are numerous characters that are introduced for no apparent reason, and more often than not their actions make no sense. Kristy herself makes no sense. Let me give you an example of what I just said:
- In the beginning Kristy receives some mystic orb from her parents that she's supposed to protect at all costs.
- Hordes of evil zombies show up and take it (and almost kill her in the process).
- She recovers from a 5 month coma and swears she'll get it back.
- She goes off to train with KungFu Panda Master (who has another apprentice i might add) in a bid to get it back.
- Meanwhile bad guys discover it is a fake, assume she swapped the orbs, and swear to get it from her.
- Bad guys attack Kristy and Panda Master, disappointing panda fight cop-out occurs.
- Bad guys realise Kristy does not have the orb. The oh-so-great panda master gets taken prisoner since bad guy is so lazy he can' t be bothered looking for it any more and needs to blackmail Kristy to do his work for him.
- Kristy does his work for him and tracks the REAL orb down. Apprentice 2 doesn't even merit an appearance . You'd think he'd be worried about his master too or something. Apparently not.
- Kristy meets guardian of the orb, who despite knowing the bad guys won't keep their word, will give the orb to Kristy if "she defeats him in battle".
- Eventually Kristy gets the orb and trades it in for the Panda Master.
- Bad guys attempt to betray her, orb guardian shows up and throws his sword to her and disappears again.
- Kristy manages to hurt the bad guy, bad guy retreats and gives back Panda Master.
- Bad guys get away with orb.
I think most of you will see my problem with this... did we forget point number one? The annoying thing is that she doesn't even seem to show any hesitation on what choice she has to make. No "ok Panda life VS Really Important Thing Dead Parents told me to guard with my life for the good of the world... what do I do?" She just blindly follows the path unwavering like a non-human automaton. Maybe because the script says so. I don't know, but I cannot identify with Kristy. At All. I cannot even begin to understand her thinking.
So uh... we've just touched on characterization, behaviour and dialogue... what about the plot?
It seems to consist of lots of cliches that feel like they've been borrowed from miscellaneous movies. There's whole parent's legacy thing, the Special One onus given to Kristy, the whole quest for an item of power, having to rescue friend by hunting for that thing bad guy wants...?
And the fight scenes. I like comics with action. I love action. But there is action and there is repetition. This is repetition.
It did cross my mind that KVTZA might actually be a parody of all the cliche films and comics that do the same thing... but it doesn't feel like a parody comic. It feels dead-serious. There is an occasional moment of humour, but none that really have me laughing. It leaves me con-fuddled.
Problems:
I don't like writing negative reviews and I really don't like not being able to praise something that has obviously shown so much effort put into it. But at the same time, I am not a PR officer for webcomics, and I do owe it to my readers to be honest.
And I truly believe I do owe it to David to at least try and explain what it is that didn't work out for me, so he can learn from it.
This is my train of thought at one point:
Ping: Hm, ok, violence... fight scene... oh another fight scene... fight scene...
*More fight scenes*
Ping: Hokay... why is she narrating exactly what she's depicted as doing in the panel? Surely it isn't necessary to describe slicing zombies with chainsaws on a panel that shows her waving around a bloody chainsaw and slicing zombies...
*Much more fight scenes Later*
Ping: ...If I see another character who's grinning say "Grin" and a character running with the sound effect "Run!" and a punching combatant say "PUNCH!" I'm going to kick something... Oh god it's another monologue recap... not another monologue recap!
*Even More fight scenes later*
Ping: This whole thing doesn't make sense. How many more pages of this left? Oh no... another obstacle... she's going to fight again. It's not even interesting fighting. Please... Kristy just shut up and fight and don't keep narrating your fight. PLEASE! HELP!
To summarize my meandering diatribe, the main problems are thus:
- Too much fighting, too little substance
- Plot makes no sense.
- Characters make no sense and do not behave in a consistent manner. They are overly dramatic about things they shouldn't be and totally ignore things that they should.
- Please stop narrating the action scenes. They're action scenes, not narr-action scenes.
That's the main ones I can think for the moment. It's a pity, because so much more could have been done with this concept, and instead of something new it just feels like a rehash.
Overall:
Once again, I am left to wonder if this was intended to be a parody. The whole thing reads like this parody page of bad action I did for How Not to Run a Comic a few years ago: How not to Do an Action Scene. It's so similar in spirit its uncanny.
Ok I'm convinced this is a parody comic now. It has to be. Given the similarity of the art here to the Rat Creatures in Jeff Smith's Bone, it has to be.
In all fairness, the comic starts improving towards the end. And it does seem that David is learning to "Show, not tell"... Behold! A page without text or narration!
I guess time will tell whether KVTZA is salvageable. I do apologize to David if I seem too harsh, but these are my very honest impressions of the comic from the point of view of a first-time reader. I hope he finds them at least a little informative. In the meantime, I'm going to get my flame-retardant suit.
The Next Leg:
The first choice I picked, "END" seems to be a broken link, so looks like Sam and Fuzzy gets the next leg!
Thursday, March 24, 2005
27th Leg: Oneshots: The Thieves of Thalegor
Comic: The Thieves of Thalegor
By: Kevin Wadlow
Setting and Elements: Fantasy world, Dungeons and Dragons, Talking Cats
Content Type: Humour, Adventure
Art Medium: Digital, Converted photographs
Art Style: Geometric, Solid shapes, gradients and patterns
Is About: The adventures of Colby and Jack, A pair of talking cats who happen to be thieves as well.
Website: http://www.whymestudios.com/oneshots.html
Frequency: On Hiatus
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation: The site design is charming, compact and clean-cut (all the C's), and more importantly, matches with the style of the comic art in itself.
This is a private beef of mine. Comic presentation is an important aspect of webcomics most people don't even think of. But it is important regardless. And sadly when they DO think of it, they don't consider whether it works with the comic... or at all. I've seen many comics with simplistic art styles presented with formats that would be more suited to a commercial website, and vice versa.
The Concept:
There seems to be a split in the comic concept. The first was a series of single-panel comics based on RPG games, and the second is more of a run-of-the-mill fantasy/RPG story. Both are based on the adventures of a pair of cat-like thief characters called Jack and Colby.
Personally, I thought the original idea was far more compelling.
The Art:
Looks familiar. I'm pretty sure I ran across one of its banners in the Comixpedia Forums or something.
To get to the point: The Thieves of Thalegor has an immediately recognisable art style. Rummaging around for a word to use: I settle on 'cute', although that very poorly describes it. "Cut-out" and "geometric" might perhaps do a better job...
Oh heck... here:
Image copyright Kevin Wadlow. Click on the picture to see it on the original site!
As you can see, it's a very attractive style, riding the same boat as Scary-Go-Round's with areas of solid colour and no outlines. It differs from SGR in the sense that Kevin also makes use of gradients to create a very unique feel for the comic.
I should also mention the backgrounds. TOT is one of the few instances where I've seen using modified photographs for backgrounds actually work. Having tried that out myself, I must say I can appreciate how hard it is to do, and Kevin deserves a round of applause for managing to accomplish it.
The Writing:
I was quite charmed by the oneshots in the beginning. Single panel comics like Bunny and The Chopping Block are significantly harder to pull off, as each stip needs to be funny AND self-contained. The make things harder, unlike story or gag comic, on bad days you don't have 'continuity' to fall back on.
TOT managed to do well in the single panel presentation regardless. I quite enjoyed the random one-shots, the duck talk strip being my favourite.
I'm sorry to admit I was less happy with the transition from the single-panel strip to the story/gag format. You see, while there's nothing inherently wrong with story/gag strips, there's the problem when you start off as one thing and try and make it another.
An oft-overlooked aspect of a webcomic is identity. By identity I mean that thing which allows you to describe comic in a sentence. Examples include: "A story comic about a cursed woman" or "a humourous comic about life in kindergarten". Without its own identity, a webcomic will eventually hit a glass ceiling and peter out from lack of interest. In this case, the random oneshots were part of this webcomic's identity, and therein lies the problem in changing it.
To be fair, some of the jokes in the story strips were quite humourous, but it's just not the same. I suppose it's not supposed to be, anyway.
Problems:
As aformentioned, the transition from "random DnD humour comic" to "Adventures of a pair of characters in a DnD world" type comic was jarring. Secondly, broken archive pages never bode well.
TOT also relies quite heavily on DnD concepts already being known to the average reader. As I have mentioned before, it is something that can be both a boon and a curse. On one hand you have a built-in audience in the DnD/RPG market, on the other hand you risk alienating the other portion of your audience that aren't DnD fans.
Overall:
As should be obvious, I was intially impressed by the oneshots, and then less than impressed at "Thieves of Thalegor".
I think the reason for it comes down to scarcity. Single panel comics about DnD are significantly rarer than adventure comics about the same. This comic had something special in the beginning, I'm sorry to say that with the change, it stopped standing out and faded.
Don't get me wrong... 'Thieves of Thalegor' is actually quite good. It just pales in comparison to the Oneshots.
The Next Leg:
The links page is not working. Fortunately there is a nice set of clickable buttons at the bottom of the main page.
Bilaran Wars? Sound like an adventure! Do we feel like adventure? Yes we do!
By: Kevin Wadlow
Setting and Elements: Fantasy world, Dungeons and Dragons, Talking Cats
Content Type: Humour, Adventure
Art Medium: Digital, Converted photographs
Art Style: Geometric, Solid shapes, gradients and patterns
Is About: The adventures of Colby and Jack, A pair of talking cats who happen to be thieves as well.
Website: http://www.whymestudios.com/oneshots.html
Frequency: On Hiatus
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation: The site design is charming, compact and clean-cut (all the C's), and more importantly, matches with the style of the comic art in itself.
This is a private beef of mine. Comic presentation is an important aspect of webcomics most people don't even think of. But it is important regardless. And sadly when they DO think of it, they don't consider whether it works with the comic... or at all. I've seen many comics with simplistic art styles presented with formats that would be more suited to a commercial website, and vice versa.
The Concept:
There seems to be a split in the comic concept. The first was a series of single-panel comics based on RPG games, and the second is more of a run-of-the-mill fantasy/RPG story. Both are based on the adventures of a pair of cat-like thief characters called Jack and Colby.
Personally, I thought the original idea was far more compelling.
The Art:
Looks familiar. I'm pretty sure I ran across one of its banners in the Comixpedia Forums or something.
To get to the point: The Thieves of Thalegor has an immediately recognisable art style. Rummaging around for a word to use: I settle on 'cute', although that very poorly describes it. "Cut-out" and "geometric" might perhaps do a better job...
Oh heck... here:
Image copyright Kevin Wadlow. Click on the picture to see it on the original site!
As you can see, it's a very attractive style, riding the same boat as Scary-Go-Round's with areas of solid colour and no outlines. It differs from SGR in the sense that Kevin also makes use of gradients to create a very unique feel for the comic.
I should also mention the backgrounds. TOT is one of the few instances where I've seen using modified photographs for backgrounds actually work. Having tried that out myself, I must say I can appreciate how hard it is to do, and Kevin deserves a round of applause for managing to accomplish it.
The Writing:
I was quite charmed by the oneshots in the beginning. Single panel comics like Bunny and The Chopping Block are significantly harder to pull off, as each stip needs to be funny AND self-contained. The make things harder, unlike story or gag comic, on bad days you don't have 'continuity' to fall back on.
TOT managed to do well in the single panel presentation regardless. I quite enjoyed the random one-shots, the duck talk strip being my favourite.
I'm sorry to admit I was less happy with the transition from the single-panel strip to the story/gag format. You see, while there's nothing inherently wrong with story/gag strips, there's the problem when you start off as one thing and try and make it another.
An oft-overlooked aspect of a webcomic is identity. By identity I mean that thing which allows you to describe comic in a sentence. Examples include: "A story comic about a cursed woman" or "a humourous comic about life in kindergarten". Without its own identity, a webcomic will eventually hit a glass ceiling and peter out from lack of interest. In this case, the random oneshots were part of this webcomic's identity, and therein lies the problem in changing it.
To be fair, some of the jokes in the story strips were quite humourous, but it's just not the same. I suppose it's not supposed to be, anyway.
Problems:
As aformentioned, the transition from "random DnD humour comic" to "Adventures of a pair of characters in a DnD world" type comic was jarring. Secondly, broken archive pages never bode well.
TOT also relies quite heavily on DnD concepts already being known to the average reader. As I have mentioned before, it is something that can be both a boon and a curse. On one hand you have a built-in audience in the DnD/RPG market, on the other hand you risk alienating the other portion of your audience that aren't DnD fans.
Overall:
As should be obvious, I was intially impressed by the oneshots, and then less than impressed at "Thieves of Thalegor".
I think the reason for it comes down to scarcity. Single panel comics about DnD are significantly rarer than adventure comics about the same. This comic had something special in the beginning, I'm sorry to say that with the change, it stopped standing out and faded.
Don't get me wrong... 'Thieves of Thalegor' is actually quite good. It just pales in comparison to the Oneshots.
The Next Leg:
The links page is not working. Fortunately there is a nice set of clickable buttons at the bottom of the main page.
Bilaran Wars? Sound like an adventure! Do we feel like adventure? Yes we do!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
26th Leg: A Lesson is Learned, But the Damage is Irreversible
There must be a certain amount of irony that with the event of this week, and I'm exploring a comic with this title.
It's really in keeping with the surreal tone of life lately.
Comic: A Lesson is Learned, But the Damage is Irreversible
By: David Hellman and Dale Beran
Setting and Elements: Surreal, Modern Life
Content Type: Satire, Philosophy
Art Medium: Digital Tablet Art
Art Style: Loose realistic, Painted Colours
Is About: I honestly don't know. (Kidding) It's basically a surreal reflection of modern life and issues. Kind of the stuff your subconscious would tell you in dreams, I suppose.
Website: http://http://www.alessonislearned.com/
Frequency: Irregular
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The art alone is very eye-catching and vastly different from the usual list of style offerings you find on the web. (See why distinctive art styles are always a good thing?)
The site presentation has its own individuality, with a rather large logo, blog and comic sandwiched in between. I find the huge logo and downscrolling a bit annoying though, especially reading through the archives with it loading on every page.
The Concept:
This is a comic that comes the closest to fine art. The skeptical would probably attribute it as the comic equivalent of the Tate Modern. You either don't understand the art or you do (or at least, pretend to, understand it).
Personally, ALIL feels more like one of those bizarre dreams you get where you fight of giant prunes with broadswords, or something like that.
The Art:
I remember being intrigued by the art style. It was something of a culmination of fine art painting and digital graphics. Think oil or acrylic painting done with a tablet and you pretty much have what ALIL looks like. Very distinctive, very eye catching.
There's an incredible wealth of lush detail, especially in the backgrounds. I also get the feeling that the panels are heavily referenced; the human figures frequently look almost stylised photographs. sometimes.
Looking at the comic, it seem really more like a series of paintings in comics form rather than a comic. This page alone would looks quite acceptable hanging from a display unit in a modern art gallery as from a humble html page or the great WWW.
The Writing:
If I said I understood it completely and it is insightful and profound, then I would be lying and you should all be throwing tomatoes or something at me.
To be perfectly frank, when I read this comic, I feel like I'm in one of those bizarre dreams that I get most of my best ideas from (don't diss dreams, they're great fun for creative inspiration). You know, one of those dreams where you get a series of event that play out, and where everything seems perfectly normal even if the flow of events aren't exactly... logical?
And when you wake up, you have no idea what it's all about, but you have a nagging feeling that dream that dream is trying to tell you something you can't quite get?
That pretty sums up how I felt while reading ALIL. It's not like the other comic I visited a few legs back (Buttercup Festival, in case you need a reminder.). Both I'd classify as 'surreal' but these are different kinds of surreal comics. In Buttercup Festival, I'd say that the humour or punchline is surreal. In ALIL, the entire sequence of events in the comic is surreal, and if you take it at face value, it does not make sense at all.
It does tend to make you think outside of your usual mental sphere though, and perhaps the lack of definition in the content is the whole point. Kind of like abstract art; You don't really know the meaning of it. You can only take a guess or make one up for yourself on what you want it to mean.
The same goes for the blog posts beneath the comic.
Problems:
It's ironic that the first thing that comes to mind as a problem with the comic is the site design. More specifically, the HUGE logo that takes up the whole screen at the top. It's irritating to have to scroll down so much every page. I'm a lazy reader, I know.
The other problem I can see is that not everyone is going to get this comic, and most likely it'll end up either inspiring the reader or making them go "WTF? What a load of pretentious cr..." and shut the browser window.
*grin* No matter how I try, I keep going back to the fine art analogy, don't I?
Overall:
Definitely something very interesting and new. I don't profess to understand it, and it both disturbs and intrigues me. I don't see it becoming a regular read, but I think there's something interesting there it how it pushes the boundries of what a webcomic can be.
The Next Leg:
Looking through the bowl of candies that is the link page, I settled on The Thieves of Thalegore. Mainly because I found it amusing how my eye consistently read it as: "Theng-ga-lore".
I know, I'm crazy sometimes. Now excuse me, I have a database to wrangle with.
It's really in keeping with the surreal tone of life lately.
Comic: A Lesson is Learned, But the Damage is Irreversible
By: David Hellman and Dale Beran
Setting and Elements: Surreal, Modern Life
Content Type: Satire, Philosophy
Art Medium: Digital Tablet Art
Art Style: Loose realistic, Painted Colours
Is About: I honestly don't know. (Kidding) It's basically a surreal reflection of modern life and issues. Kind of the stuff your subconscious would tell you in dreams, I suppose.
Website: http://http://www.alessonislearned.com/
Frequency: Irregular
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The art alone is very eye-catching and vastly different from the usual list of style offerings you find on the web. (See why distinctive art styles are always a good thing?)
The site presentation has its own individuality, with a rather large logo, blog and comic sandwiched in between. I find the huge logo and downscrolling a bit annoying though, especially reading through the archives with it loading on every page.
The Concept:
This is a comic that comes the closest to fine art. The skeptical would probably attribute it as the comic equivalent of the Tate Modern. You either don't understand the art or you do (or at least, pretend to, understand it).
Personally, ALIL feels more like one of those bizarre dreams you get where you fight of giant prunes with broadswords, or something like that.
The Art:
I remember being intrigued by the art style. It was something of a culmination of fine art painting and digital graphics. Think oil or acrylic painting done with a tablet and you pretty much have what ALIL looks like. Very distinctive, very eye catching.
There's an incredible wealth of lush detail, especially in the backgrounds. I also get the feeling that the panels are heavily referenced; the human figures frequently look almost stylised photographs. sometimes.
Looking at the comic, it seem really more like a series of paintings in comics form rather than a comic. This page alone would looks quite acceptable hanging from a display unit in a modern art gallery as from a humble html page or the great WWW.
The Writing:
If I said I understood it completely and it is insightful and profound, then I would be lying and you should all be throwing tomatoes or something at me.
To be perfectly frank, when I read this comic, I feel like I'm in one of those bizarre dreams that I get most of my best ideas from (don't diss dreams, they're great fun for creative inspiration). You know, one of those dreams where you get a series of event that play out, and where everything seems perfectly normal even if the flow of events aren't exactly... logical?
And when you wake up, you have no idea what it's all about, but you have a nagging feeling that dream that dream is trying to tell you something you can't quite get?
That pretty sums up how I felt while reading ALIL. It's not like the other comic I visited a few legs back (Buttercup Festival, in case you need a reminder.). Both I'd classify as 'surreal' but these are different kinds of surreal comics. In Buttercup Festival, I'd say that the humour or punchline is surreal. In ALIL, the entire sequence of events in the comic is surreal, and if you take it at face value, it does not make sense at all.
It does tend to make you think outside of your usual mental sphere though, and perhaps the lack of definition in the content is the whole point. Kind of like abstract art; You don't really know the meaning of it. You can only take a guess or make one up for yourself on what you want it to mean.
The same goes for the blog posts beneath the comic.
Problems:
It's ironic that the first thing that comes to mind as a problem with the comic is the site design. More specifically, the HUGE logo that takes up the whole screen at the top. It's irritating to have to scroll down so much every page. I'm a lazy reader, I know.
The other problem I can see is that not everyone is going to get this comic, and most likely it'll end up either inspiring the reader or making them go "WTF? What a load of pretentious cr..." and shut the browser window.
*grin* No matter how I try, I keep going back to the fine art analogy, don't I?
Overall:
Definitely something very interesting and new. I don't profess to understand it, and it both disturbs and intrigues me. I don't see it becoming a regular read, but I think there's something interesting there it how it pushes the boundries of what a webcomic can be.
The Next Leg:
Looking through the bowl of candies that is the link page, I settled on The Thieves of Thalegore. Mainly because I found it amusing how my eye consistently read it as: "Theng-ga-lore".
I know, I'm crazy sometimes. Now excuse me, I have a database to wrangle with.
Monday, February 14, 2005
24th Leg: Twelve Dragons
(This leg took so long because I wrote the whole thing, and forgot to save before closing the window. ARRRGH!)
If you recall back at Killroy and Tina, I had a choice between Ascent and Twelve Dragons.
I really wanted to blog about Ascent for ages, but Twelve Dragons really looked interesting, so I checked it out and decided to do a sidetrack. I get back to Ascent next leg, but first...
Comic: Twelve Dragons
By: YuoMa (Artist) and Werner (Writer)
Setting and Elements: Fantasy World (Pangea)
Content Type: Story, Action-Adventure, Epic, Explicit violence, Explicit sex scenes
Art Medium: Ink, Grayscale, Occasional Colour.
Art Style: Manga-Influenced. Semi-Realistic
Is About: Krok, a half-dwarf/imp, Grog (changeling) and Milinida (Hellhound) are three players in a massive prophecy concerning the fate of the world of Pangea. The dragons of Pangea are slow dying out from some mysterious evil, and something must be done to save them and the world.
Website: http://twelvedragons.keenspace.com
Frequency: Irregular
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation: There was no comic on the front page, but I'll admit I was surprised at the Mature rating. Must be for the violence or something.
The website feels rather cluttered hard to read, to be honest. The fixed background especially draws your attention away from the foreground, which is always a bad thing, especially when you can't tell which parts of page are foreground and which are background. The dragon in the logo looks good though.
*clicks on first link*
Looks like a promising setup... and...
*clicks next few pages*
...
Whoa. Hokay... I see why they have earned that mature rating now...
The Concept:
I'm kind of divided about the concept. On one hand it's an intriguing and complex setting. On the other, it involves prophecies and more specifically... overly-specific prophecies about fate people doing fated things. I've never quite liked the concept of prophecies as if you're fated to do something, it sorts of takes away the tension of it, but that's just my opinion.
The Art:
The art is definitely manga-influenced, although not that much that I would think 'manga' the moment I see it. Most of it looks hand-drawn, and there's some clever use of colour for special effects.
Sometimes though, the photoshopped touches don't work out as well as can be hoped. Or sometimes the bright red blood just looks too artificial.
In the beginning the postures looked rather stiff and unnatural, especially for the action scenes. Sometimes the limbs are bent at impossible angles. The action scenes are rather good despite this, however, even the overly saturated red blood splotches doesn't take away too much from it.
The anatomy is variable. Sometimes it looks very good, sometimes it just looks wrong. I do like the distinctive character designs, although I find it odd that the majority of the female characters seem lose their clothes pretty quickly.
In the case, I think they really made good use of it in the beginning for shock value and horror, but after awhile the rest of it seems to be there to pander to the audiences, and one chapter in particular came close to reading rather like someone's ill-disguised wet-dream.
Nitpick: The sword in this pic looks (and is being used) more a like a rapier/foil, not a sabre. Besides, a sabre is more of a slashing weapon, not a stabbing one. It's nitpicky of me, I know, but I'm particular about my blades.
Nitpick two: The laws of physics have been defied.
The Writing:
Is compelling, although it does require some suspension of disbelief, though.
The strongest point is probably the level of world-building that has gone into the creation of Pangea. There's just so much complexity and detail in this story that it really draws the reader in. The storytelling isn't afraid to take a step back from the plot and meander a bit, and manages to do something few comics manage to do; that is to introduce the reader to the complex world they created without being made do fell they're being derailed into a history lecture.
The majority of characters, even the casual villian that gets chopped into little itty bits, get some level of characterisation. Some are particularly excellent, my favourites are currently Krok, Milinida, (Oi! Give her more screen time!), Pulpo and oddly enough, Gargoleth.
I wish I could say the same for a lot fo the females, though. In fact with the noted exception of Alyzehadra and Lady Milinida (one who is a dragon and the other a hellhound), and perhaps the exception of one elf mother, the majority of female characters in this comic all seem to be severely underdeveloped. If fact, they're seemingly there mainly for
Now before any of you start getting a knee-jerk reaction and accusing me of being a feminist, let me point out I'm not against the potrayal of any of these things in a story or comic. Rape and other such bad things do happen to women (and men) and ignoring the fact they happen and insisting that they shouldn't be potrayed as happening is nothing short of stupid. In fact, I was quite impressed in the beginning how they daring they were with it, untill the repetitive 'damsel in distress' plot devices wore thin and threadbare after a while.
No, my beef is that it seems to be happening almost all the time. If you still don't get my point of view, imagine a comic where 75% of the men are always having their clothes ripped off and frequently end up being rescued from capture/rape from the women. There's just something wrong with that inverted picture, isn't there?
Almost as bad as introducing a strong smart and omnipotent (an unrealistically vomit-inducing) female character just for the sake of 'identifying' with the female audience. *rolls eyes*
Oh, and the bonus stories involving the four swordsmen are excellent! Keep them coming, but hold the damsel-in-distress setup, please. It's getting really repetitive.
Problems:
It's the internet, and frankly, gratitious nudity is no big deal. But despite being a regular reader of Loxie and Zoot something about the nudity depicted really bothered me. It wasn't till later when I figured out what was wrong with it. (And yes, picture is NOT safe for work, school or the company of people of tender and impressionable ages.)
There are several nasty typos in the archive pages. I know... I'm almost a spelling nazi ;)
Oh, and cast page no updatey, so forgive me for not getting the names right if any.
And fillers in middle of story = bad!
Overall:
Twelve Dragons was interesting for being a comic I was impressed with in the beginning, felt repulsed by after a while because of the incessant fanservice, and then drawn back to by the sheer strength of the story and world setting. While this speaks of the writer's skill in storytelling and pacing, I think it would have done much better if it didn't try so hard to titillate the male audience and end up alienating the other half of potential readers in the process.
In short, if you like epic storylines, well- developed fantasy worlds, don't mind explicit sex/violence, you might like this. IF you're easily offended, don't like unequal portrayal of genders, don't like gratitious violence, DiD (Damsels in Distress) cliches and the prophecy/world revolves around them syndrome you may want to give this one a miss.
It's something like marmite or durian, an acquired taste you'll either love or hate.
The Next Leg:
Sidetrack over! Ascent, Ascent and Ascent!
If you recall back at Killroy and Tina, I had a choice between Ascent and Twelve Dragons.
I really wanted to blog about Ascent for ages, but Twelve Dragons really looked interesting, so I checked it out and decided to do a sidetrack. I get back to Ascent next leg, but first...
Comic: Twelve Dragons
By: YuoMa (Artist) and Werner (Writer)
Setting and Elements: Fantasy World (Pangea)
Content Type: Story, Action-Adventure, Epic, Explicit violence, Explicit sex scenes
Art Medium: Ink, Grayscale, Occasional Colour.
Art Style: Manga-Influenced. Semi-Realistic
Is About: Krok, a half-dwarf/imp, Grog (changeling) and Milinida (Hellhound) are three players in a massive prophecy concerning the fate of the world of Pangea. The dragons of Pangea are slow dying out from some mysterious evil, and something must be done to save them and the world.
Website: http://twelvedragons.keenspace.com
Frequency: Irregular
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation: There was no comic on the front page, but I'll admit I was surprised at the Mature rating. Must be for the violence or something.
The website feels rather cluttered hard to read, to be honest. The fixed background especially draws your attention away from the foreground, which is always a bad thing, especially when you can't tell which parts of page are foreground and which are background. The dragon in the logo looks good though.
*clicks on first link*
Looks like a promising setup... and...
*clicks next few pages*
...
Whoa. Hokay... I see why they have earned that mature rating now...
The Concept:
I'm kind of divided about the concept. On one hand it's an intriguing and complex setting. On the other, it involves prophecies and more specifically... overly-specific prophecies about fate people doing fated things. I've never quite liked the concept of prophecies as if you're fated to do something, it sorts of takes away the tension of it, but that's just my opinion.
The Art:
The art is definitely manga-influenced, although not that much that I would think 'manga' the moment I see it. Most of it looks hand-drawn, and there's some clever use of colour for special effects.
Sometimes though, the photoshopped touches don't work out as well as can be hoped. Or sometimes the bright red blood just looks too artificial.
In the beginning the postures looked rather stiff and unnatural, especially for the action scenes. Sometimes the limbs are bent at impossible angles. The action scenes are rather good despite this, however, even the overly saturated red blood splotches doesn't take away too much from it.
The anatomy is variable. Sometimes it looks very good, sometimes it just looks wrong. I do like the distinctive character designs, although I find it odd that the majority of the female characters seem lose their clothes pretty quickly.
In the case, I think they really made good use of it in the beginning for shock value and horror, but after awhile the rest of it seems to be there to pander to the audiences, and one chapter in particular came close to reading rather like someone's ill-disguised wet-dream.
Nitpick: The sword in this pic looks (and is being used) more a like a rapier/foil, not a sabre. Besides, a sabre is more of a slashing weapon, not a stabbing one. It's nitpicky of me, I know, but I'm particular about my blades.
Nitpick two: The laws of physics have been defied.
The Writing:
Is compelling, although it does require some suspension of disbelief, though.
The strongest point is probably the level of world-building that has gone into the creation of Pangea. There's just so much complexity and detail in this story that it really draws the reader in. The storytelling isn't afraid to take a step back from the plot and meander a bit, and manages to do something few comics manage to do; that is to introduce the reader to the complex world they created without being made do fell they're being derailed into a history lecture.
The majority of characters, even the casual villian that gets chopped into little itty bits, get some level of characterisation. Some are particularly excellent, my favourites are currently Krok, Milinida, (Oi! Give her more screen time!), Pulpo and oddly enough, Gargoleth.
I wish I could say the same for a lot fo the females, though. In fact with the noted exception of Alyzehadra and Lady Milinida (one who is a dragon and the other a hellhound), and perhaps the exception of one elf mother, the majority of female characters in this comic all seem to be severely underdeveloped. If fact, they're seemingly there mainly for
- Playing damsel in distress (Too many to count)
- Romantic interest (Tatiana, perhaps Tanek though I hope not)
- Titillation and getting naked (Far too many to count, and this really spoiled the character of Tanek for me.)
- Tail (Far too many to count)
Now before any of you start getting a knee-jerk reaction and accusing me of being a feminist, let me point out I'm not against the potrayal of any of these things in a story or comic. Rape and other such bad things do happen to women (and men) and ignoring the fact they happen and insisting that they shouldn't be potrayed as happening is nothing short of stupid. In fact, I was quite impressed in the beginning how they daring they were with it, untill the repetitive 'damsel in distress' plot devices wore thin and threadbare after a while.
No, my beef is that it seems to be happening almost all the time. If you still don't get my point of view, imagine a comic where 75% of the men are always having their clothes ripped off and frequently end up being rescued from capture/rape from the women. There's just something wrong with that inverted picture, isn't there?
Almost as bad as introducing a strong smart and omnipotent (an unrealistically vomit-inducing) female character just for the sake of 'identifying' with the female audience. *rolls eyes*
Oh, and the bonus stories involving the four swordsmen are excellent! Keep them coming, but hold the damsel-in-distress setup, please. It's getting really repetitive.
Problems:
It's the internet, and frankly, gratitious nudity is no big deal. But despite being a regular reader of Loxie and Zoot something about the nudity depicted really bothered me. It wasn't till later when I figured out what was wrong with it. (And yes, picture is NOT safe for work, school or the company of people of tender and impressionable ages.)
There are several nasty typos in the archive pages. I know... I'm almost a spelling nazi ;)
Oh, and cast page no updatey, so forgive me for not getting the names right if any.
And fillers in middle of story = bad!
Overall:
Twelve Dragons was interesting for being a comic I was impressed with in the beginning, felt repulsed by after a while because of the incessant fanservice, and then drawn back to by the sheer strength of the story and world setting. While this speaks of the writer's skill in storytelling and pacing, I think it would have done much better if it didn't try so hard to titillate the male audience and end up alienating the other half of potential readers in the process.
In short, if you like epic storylines, well- developed fantasy worlds, don't mind explicit sex/violence, you might like this. IF you're easily offended, don't like unequal portrayal of genders, don't like gratitious violence, DiD (Damsels in Distress) cliches and the prophecy/world revolves around them syndrome you may want to give this one a miss.
It's something like marmite or durian, an acquired taste you'll either love or hate.
The Next Leg:
Sidetrack over! Ascent, Ascent and Ascent!
Sunday, November 28, 2004
20th Leg: Buttercup Festival
Let's start with something off topic: I declare Toad-In-The-Hole the best example of British cuisine ever! Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding come close as second best, but Toad-in-The-Hole has the funnier sounding name. ;)
And no, we're not eating frogs or anything like that.
Comic: Buttercup Festival
By: Elliott G. Garbauskas
Genre and Setting: Quirky, Surreal, Commentary
Art Style: B/W inks, Minimalistic, Simplified. Occasional forays into different media.
Is About:
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. We have the main character, which appears to be a little grim-reaper fella. And he uh... does things. And comments on them.
Website: http://www.buttercupfestival.com
Frequency: Mondays
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The website is nice and cleanly minimalistic.
The art on the comic displayed on the first page seems intriguing though. To be honest I don't 'get' what "Remember Nick" means, but I presume it's an internal reference I'll get later.
Navigation is a bit confusing. There's a "previous" button, but no "start from the beginning" button. Looking through the archives, there's a listing of each strip from several volumes, but oddly enough, none for volume one.
I guess I'll start from volume two then.
The Concept:
Erm... I'm not sure what exactly the concept is, except that Buttercup Festival apparently strives to bring new levels of subtlety into comic punchlines. Similar to Cat and Girl, there's some social commentary, and the occasional satire.
The Art:
Deceptively simplistic, but the kind of simplicity that only skilled artists are capable of producing. Everything is minimalised, yet it works wonderfully. There's never backgrounds unless they're required, but when you do see them, they are stunningly detailed.
Can't say that the artist is lazy, though. In most cases like this most people would have cut-and-pasted. But Elliott doesn't, and draws each frame by hand.
Occasionally, Elliott dabbles in alternative media, ranging from watercolour, what looks like crayons, milky-pens on coloured paper and even post-it notes and lined pads. Sometimes you get awesome compositions like this. Sometimes... well, you don't.
I'm particularly awed by the artist's skill in doing landscapes though. Amazing. I suspect the artist comes from a fine art background.
The Writing:
The humour for buttercup is like doing cryptic crosswords. For each comic, you have to decipher the punchline.
The general structure of a Buttercup Festival comic runs thus:
Sometimes it's easy to make the connection, like this one. But more often, I find myself going "huh?" and sometimes less politely: "W T F?"
All though sometimes, the ones I do get make me feel convinced there's something worthwhile I'm missing in the ones I didn't get.
And some are just brilliant. I particularly like the alternative punchlines. Especially when all of them are funny.
Problems:
I'll be honest and admit that I probably understood 25% of the jokes in the entire archive.
Most of them I suspect I could figure out if I thought more about it. And then there are some that I simple cannot understand at all...
I understand that subtle humour is an art and toning down would probably ruin it, but if you're planning to give this comic a read, be prepared to be frustrated at not being able to figure out what comic after comic is supposed to say.
Overall:
Definitely interesting and unique in delivery. Exasperating at times. Brilliant at others.
Try this one if you have patience and feel like something bizarrely different.
Don't try it if you need to have your punchlines delivered on a silver platter. Or if you REALLY like hamsters, gerbils and cute fluffy animals and have absolutely NO sense of humour regarding the mistreatment of them.
The Next Leg:
I was planning to just pick the middle link in the list of links in the links page, but as it turned out, it was Scary-Go-Round, which I've already done.
So let's take the one below that.
Elsie Hooper. Hmm...
And no, we're not eating frogs or anything like that.
Comic: Buttercup Festival
By: Elliott G. Garbauskas
Genre and Setting: Quirky, Surreal, Commentary
Art Style: B/W inks, Minimalistic, Simplified. Occasional forays into different media.
Is About:
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. We have the main character, which appears to be a little grim-reaper fella. And he uh... does things. And comments on them.
Website: http://www.buttercupfestival.com
Frequency: Mondays
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The website is nice and cleanly minimalistic.
The art on the comic displayed on the first page seems intriguing though. To be honest I don't 'get' what "Remember Nick" means, but I presume it's an internal reference I'll get later.
Navigation is a bit confusing. There's a "previous" button, but no "start from the beginning" button. Looking through the archives, there's a listing of each strip from several volumes, but oddly enough, none for volume one.
I guess I'll start from volume two then.
The Concept:
Erm... I'm not sure what exactly the concept is, except that Buttercup Festival apparently strives to bring new levels of subtlety into comic punchlines. Similar to Cat and Girl, there's some social commentary, and the occasional satire.
The Art:
Deceptively simplistic, but the kind of simplicity that only skilled artists are capable of producing. Everything is minimalised, yet it works wonderfully. There's never backgrounds unless they're required, but when you do see them, they are stunningly detailed.
Can't say that the artist is lazy, though. In most cases like this most people would have cut-and-pasted. But Elliott doesn't, and draws each frame by hand.
Occasionally, Elliott dabbles in alternative media, ranging from watercolour, what looks like crayons, milky-pens on coloured paper and even post-it notes and lined pads. Sometimes you get awesome compositions like this. Sometimes... well, you don't.
I'm particularly awed by the artist's skill in doing landscapes though. Amazing. I suspect the artist comes from a fine art background.
The Writing:
The humour for buttercup is like doing cryptic crosswords. For each comic, you have to decipher the punchline.
The general structure of a Buttercup Festival comic runs thus:
First panel: Main character comments on something.
Second panel: Supporting character comments back.
Third Panel: Something seemingly unrelated but apparently has a hidden connection to make the punchline
Sometimes it's easy to make the connection, like this one. But more often, I find myself going "huh?" and sometimes less politely: "W T F?"
All though sometimes, the ones I do get make me feel convinced there's something worthwhile I'm missing in the ones I didn't get.
And some are just brilliant. I particularly like the alternative punchlines. Especially when all of them are funny.
Problems:
I'll be honest and admit that I probably understood 25% of the jokes in the entire archive.
Most of them I suspect I could figure out if I thought more about it. And then there are some that I simple cannot understand at all...
I understand that subtle humour is an art and toning down would probably ruin it, but if you're planning to give this comic a read, be prepared to be frustrated at not being able to figure out what comic after comic is supposed to say.
Overall:
Definitely interesting and unique in delivery. Exasperating at times. Brilliant at others.
Try this one if you have patience and feel like something bizarrely different.
Don't try it if you need to have your punchlines delivered on a silver platter. Or if you REALLY like hamsters, gerbils and cute fluffy animals and have absolutely NO sense of humour regarding the mistreatment of them.
The Next Leg:
I was planning to just pick the middle link in the list of links in the links page, but as it turned out, it was Scary-Go-Round, which I've already done.
So let's take the one below that.
Elsie Hooper. Hmm...
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
19th Leg: Cat and Girl
Yes yes. It's been a long time. I'm not going to apologise for having a life and obligations. Some things are just more important.
In the news, Eric Burns dropped General Protection Fault from his list of reads recently.
Now some of you will be wondering why the hell anyone would care why some guy with a blog stopped reading one of the longest running Keenspot comics. The answer is because the blog in question is WebSnark. And unfortunately, Eric's snarks have a domino effect.
I've been a longtime reader of GPF. The very first webcomic I ever read was PvP. I then progressed to Sluggy Freelance and next.. GPF. So it's probably the third webcomic I discovered. That's even before I discovered one of the comics that prompted me to seriously start webcomicking, The Wandering Ones. So that was probably around 2000.
I remember GPF throughout my years in high school. I identified with Ki when I was the only girl in Computer Science class and the guys were taking bets on how long it would take me to drop the subject. In fact, thinking back, I can remember which storylines related to which part of my life.
However, Eric's snark got me thinking. Most importantly, it got me reevaluating the strip I'd been reading for the past 4... (or was that 5?) years. If I had stumbled across GPF now through Webcomic Finds, instead of all those years ago, would I have rated it the same way I did back then? Most of all, has reading GPF become something I do out of habit?
I suspect that the answer may be closer to the former than the latter.
In retrospect I think that the reasons we read the comics we read because they're the only ones we know of. And they are on hand and familiar.
And because we don't know that others exist.
When we go to webcomic directories like Onlinecomics or Buzzcomix we're faced with such a daunting list of choices that we never know what to pick. So we rarely pick any of them.
And thus we stick to the same group of comics and rarely explore anything else. Like I once told someone else, insular little groups.
The question is, how can we change this?
Comic: Cat and Girl
By: Dorothy Gambrell
Genre and Setting: Surreal, Modern Life, Social Commentary
Art Style: Simplistic Cartoony, Inked, Black-and-White
Is About: Cat, a giant humanoid cat and Girl... a girl. Basically they ramble, comment and try to make sense of the world.
Website: http://www.catandgirl.com/
Frequency: Mainly Wednesdays, according to The Webcomic List
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The website design is plain, simple and functional, although having the navigation bunched up at the top caused me to miss the whole thing when I was looking for the author's name.
I'll be honest and admit the art didn't impress me straight away. I know it's unfair because I've been on a straight run of comics with fantastic art... Cat and Girl's minimalistic art style shows up badly in contrast, but I'm being honest.
However, on reading the comic on the index page:
I can tell already this will be no ordinary webcomic.
The Concept:
Well, you have a kid and the imaginary(?) animal companion. Even the character poke fun at this themselves. Some people might say that the derivation is a bad thing, but personally, I don't find a problem with it. Cat seems more human than animorphic to me.
The Art:
Not exactly the comic's best selling point. The art style is simplistic and minimal.
However, I feel obliged to point out that this minimalism actually serves a purpose, as the characters of Cat and Girl are highly symbolic. Their very names reflect this. As Scott McCloud explained in Understanding Comics, for symbolic characters, the lack of detailed features help the reader project their perceptions onto, and thus, identify with the character.
Dorothy tends to use a LOT of cut and paste though. Most of the time it works, especially when the strip utilises repetition to get a point across. But at other times... she's sneaky!
And at other times, she's damn cool!
One thing I'm surprised to note is that for a comic that started five years ago, the art style has remained consistent. Most comics tend to show variations is style over time. Some to a starling degree. But except for some tightening of lines, the art of Cat and Girl looks pretty much unchanged from day one.
This is actually a good thing. As much as I love webcomics, sometimes the rapid change of styles annoy me, especially if the comic in question is a story comic, and Character A ends up looking totally different by the end of the storyline.
I have this problem myself, but let's not go into that. ;)
The Writing:
Thought-Provoking, but in a passive way.
In general I greatly dislike politically themed comics. But that's becasue in general they tend to shove their opinions bluntly down your throat and expect me to swallow them.
For this reason Cat and Girl ought to be modelled as "How to do a political comic". Instead of the in-your-face approach, Cat take a more back-seat approach: In fact they have their own formula. But it works most of the time. I'm compelled to think about the issue at hand instead of feeling like I'm the victim of a brainwashing-attempt.
One thing I should also mention. The relationships between the characters, while not the central part of the strip are compelling. Boy has a crush on Girl, but is never able to express it other than later when the opportunity has passed and he's alone in his room. I'm not sure what the relationship between Cat and Girl are... Cat seems to be some sort of Guardian, but still is dependent on Girl. Girl appears to be the child, yet is an adult and breadwinner at the same time.
In the end I tie all this down to symbolism. Cat and Girl are whatever we perceive them as, and what we can relate to them as.
Problems:
Well, as someone else already said, it's sometimes a bit preachy.
I'll also be honest and admit a lot of the strips I don't 'get'. but I think that might be due to my ignorance of the issues over the atlantic more than anything else.
The plain art won't serve to pull readers in, but recommendations the writing will get will.
Overall:
Comics like Cat and Girl are all too rare on the internet. It's distinctive in it's own right, and has a niche that it has created for itself.
And it makes you think without you getting annoyed that it makes you think.
It's not a comic I can fall madly in love with, but I'll come back to it every now and then when my mental state gets stagnant and needs some stimulating.
The Next Leg:
Hmm, I've never heard of Buttercup Festival before...
In the news, Eric Burns dropped General Protection Fault from his list of reads recently.
Now some of you will be wondering why the hell anyone would care why some guy with a blog stopped reading one of the longest running Keenspot comics. The answer is because the blog in question is WebSnark. And unfortunately, Eric's snarks have a domino effect.
I've been a longtime reader of GPF. The very first webcomic I ever read was PvP. I then progressed to Sluggy Freelance and next.. GPF. So it's probably the third webcomic I discovered. That's even before I discovered one of the comics that prompted me to seriously start webcomicking, The Wandering Ones. So that was probably around 2000.
I remember GPF throughout my years in high school. I identified with Ki when I was the only girl in Computer Science class and the guys were taking bets on how long it would take me to drop the subject. In fact, thinking back, I can remember which storylines related to which part of my life.
However, Eric's snark got me thinking. Most importantly, it got me reevaluating the strip I'd been reading for the past 4... (or was that 5?) years. If I had stumbled across GPF now through Webcomic Finds, instead of all those years ago, would I have rated it the same way I did back then? Most of all, has reading GPF become something I do out of habit?
I suspect that the answer may be closer to the former than the latter.
In retrospect I think that the reasons we read the comics we read because they're the only ones we know of. And they are on hand and familiar.
And because we don't know that others exist.
When we go to webcomic directories like Onlinecomics or Buzzcomix we're faced with such a daunting list of choices that we never know what to pick. So we rarely pick any of them.
And thus we stick to the same group of comics and rarely explore anything else. Like I once told someone else, insular little groups.
The question is, how can we change this?
Comic: Cat and Girl
By: Dorothy Gambrell
Genre and Setting: Surreal, Modern Life, Social Commentary
Art Style: Simplistic Cartoony, Inked, Black-and-White
Is About: Cat, a giant humanoid cat and Girl... a girl. Basically they ramble, comment and try to make sense of the world.
Website: http://www.catandgirl.com/
Frequency: Mainly Wednesdays, according to The Webcomic List
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
The website design is plain, simple and functional, although having the navigation bunched up at the top caused me to miss the whole thing when I was looking for the author's name.
I'll be honest and admit the art didn't impress me straight away. I know it's unfair because I've been on a straight run of comics with fantastic art... Cat and Girl's minimalistic art style shows up badly in contrast, but I'm being honest.
However, on reading the comic on the index page:
Ping: Ho-kay. This heavy stuff...
I can tell already this will be no ordinary webcomic.
The Concept:
Well, you have a kid and the imaginary(?) animal companion. Even the character poke fun at this themselves. Some people might say that the derivation is a bad thing, but personally, I don't find a problem with it. Cat seems more human than animorphic to me.
The Art:
Not exactly the comic's best selling point. The art style is simplistic and minimal.
However, I feel obliged to point out that this minimalism actually serves a purpose, as the characters of Cat and Girl are highly symbolic. Their very names reflect this. As Scott McCloud explained in Understanding Comics, for symbolic characters, the lack of detailed features help the reader project their perceptions onto, and thus, identify with the character.
Dorothy tends to use a LOT of cut and paste though. Most of the time it works, especially when the strip utilises repetition to get a point across. But at other times... she's sneaky!
And at other times, she's damn cool!
One thing I'm surprised to note is that for a comic that started five years ago, the art style has remained consistent. Most comics tend to show variations is style over time. Some to a starling degree. But except for some tightening of lines, the art of Cat and Girl looks pretty much unchanged from day one.
This is actually a good thing. As much as I love webcomics, sometimes the rapid change of styles annoy me, especially if the comic in question is a story comic, and Character A ends up looking totally different by the end of the storyline.
I have this problem myself, but let's not go into that. ;)
The Writing:
Thought-Provoking, but in a passive way.
In general I greatly dislike politically themed comics. But that's becasue in general they tend to shove their opinions bluntly down your throat and expect me to swallow them.
For this reason Cat and Girl ought to be modelled as "How to do a political comic". Instead of the in-your-face approach, Cat take a more back-seat approach: In fact they have their own formula. But it works most of the time. I'm compelled to think about the issue at hand instead of feeling like I'm the victim of a brainwashing-attempt.
One thing I should also mention. The relationships between the characters, while not the central part of the strip are compelling. Boy has a crush on Girl, but is never able to express it other than later when the opportunity has passed and he's alone in his room. I'm not sure what the relationship between Cat and Girl are... Cat seems to be some sort of Guardian, but still is dependent on Girl. Girl appears to be the child, yet is an adult and breadwinner at the same time.
In the end I tie all this down to symbolism. Cat and Girl are whatever we perceive them as, and what we can relate to them as.
Problems:
Well, as someone else already said, it's sometimes a bit preachy.
I'll also be honest and admit a lot of the strips I don't 'get'. but I think that might be due to my ignorance of the issues over the atlantic more than anything else.
The plain art won't serve to pull readers in, but recommendations the writing will get will.
Overall:
Comics like Cat and Girl are all too rare on the internet. It's distinctive in it's own right, and has a niche that it has created for itself.
And it makes you think without you getting annoyed that it makes you think.
It's not a comic I can fall madly in love with, but I'll come back to it every now and then when my mental state gets stagnant and needs some stimulating.
The Next Leg:
Hmm, I've never heard of Buttercup Festival before...
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
14th Leg: Deathworld
The new issue of the Webcomics Examiner is up. You'll recall I said it hadn't quite clicked with me yet, but I gave the new issue another go anyway, just to see if the feeling would change.
Wow! I see that this month's issue really seems to be dominated by the Modern Tales family. I spot James Kochalka (American Elf), Dylan Meconis (GirlaMatic), and Gene Yang (Modern Tales).
There's also a surprise review of my friend Ryan Kolter's comic Reasoned Cognition on the line. The surprise is because being pre-occupied with his impending nuptials I think he doesn't even know about that existence of the review yet. In comparison to the other two reviews, the review for Reasoned Cognition is short and sweet, just the way I like it.
Speaking of the reviews, the WCE reviews sure are heavy stuff! When reading them, I couldn't help but feel the contrast between theirs and those on this humble little blog. They sure live up to their name of 'Examiner' and scrutinise those comics to the last inch! Whereas I just hammer them out from the point of a reader.
It got me thinking: Do these things I write on this blog really constitute as reviews or am I just classifying them? Looking up on the Dictionary.com definition I found:
I guess I do fulfil the criteria. A bit. Not in the same way, but oh heck...
On to the 'review'!
Comic: Deathworld
By: Rudi Gunther
Genre and Setting: Sci-fi, University-life, Humour, Story,
Art Style: Cartoony, Inked, Early strips B&W, latter strips in full colour.
Is About: Matt Blaster, a futuristic space marine whose squadron is decimated in a failed assault. In the afterlife, he is placed on the Deathworld (Or the U of A, wherever that is), a planet where all being exist just for the amusement of its caretaker. During the course of time. Matt meets other characters in the afterlife and constantly battles both a mad scientist and a bunch of paranormals... apparently just for the heck of it.
Website: http://www.fuddafudda.com/
Frequency: Tuesdays and Fridays. Given that the archive size is currently almost 600 strips, I'd say it's pretty reliable.
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
With a name like Deathworld, I was subconsciously expecting something along the lines of Flatwood or Voices In My Hand. You know, black and white or greyscale art, creepy atmosphere, chilling story/humour... those kind of things.
Instead I was quite surprised when the page loaded and I found myself looking at a cartoony page drenched in very vibrant colour. Let me emphasize the vibrant colour part just so you know how startling that particular detail was to me.
The most curious thing about this whole leg is, I actually muttered: "Wha... Superosity?"
Which is silly at the second take because the art is quite different, and the premise for the story doesn't really seem to be the same. Of course, I've never actually read Superosity. I mean, yeah it's a comic by one of the Fab Four (In case you're not familiar with that: the four Keenspot founders) but I never could bring myself it actually start reading the 2000 pages or so that constitute the archive.
So I guess I'll have to admit that my only impression of Superosity so far has been... lots of bright green... and hand-lettering.
Which suddenly explains why I associated Deathworld with Superiosity based on just the superficial similarities I noticed first. Isn't it odd what the human subconscious registers?
Anyway, the site navigaation is mercifully standard and the buttons are clearly labelled and easy to navigate. The vibrant green do make it easier since it makes the comic and buttons stand out against the dark background.
The Concept:
Well, I found the concept of the afterlife being a puppet on a SIMs-like planet and in a university amusing. It's certainly something slightly away from the norm.
However I was sometimes confused by the constant veering between the sci-fi/adventure and university-gag jokes. And how the simulated world doesn't even try to make sense...
The Art:
Pretty consistent throughout.
It looks like ink-work with very little variation.I wouldn't say it's blindingly good, but something in it does remind me a lot of Schlock Mercenary. I think it's the way they draw eyes.
The latter parts of the comic where the colour comes in are actually pretty cool.
The Writing:
Personally, I quite liked the beginning, where the space troopers storm the alien planet and get butchered by the stereotype Aliens Aliens, Matt gets killed, and is told that his version of hell will be getting plonked on a senseless planet for amusement of the caretaker of the planet which happens to take after some university called 'The U of A'.
So accordingly, Matt ends up on Deathworld, and the story all but goes rapidly downhill from there. For some reason, Matt becomes obligated to shoot pretty much everything that crosses him. Oh, and he makes an arch-enemy out of the resident evil mad scientist-professor, who in return wants to kill him too. And the stereotypically named Prof. Von Rudenstein proceeds to do so, using a bunch of pretty much useless inventions.
Being swallowed by one of these, Matt meets the fellow space trooper Alison (who is pretty much the geek idealised woman. You know, hot babe, engineer, wears silly armour and kicks major ass to boot). Why exactly Alison is in the stomach of a monster is never quite explained, but I presume there should be a reason that I didn't catch on. Or maybe the Caretaker put her there to make things interesting
Anyway for the next couple hundred pages, yours truly was trapped in a ever worsening cycle of maddingly boring action scenes. All of them were senselessly violent. The worst part of it was that the violence and swearing were being set up as the punchline. Look, people swear in stressful situations. It's a fact of life. But having to hear it every other sentence is rather grating on the nerves, just so you know.
Oh, and just because I don't want my site attracting the wrong search strings, I'm going to attempt to reproduce the language without actually duplicating it.
*readers become confused*
Anyway, this is a typical story-arc:
Now repeat several times, with infinite variations (i.e. Different monster, different character involved. Maybe different way of killing monsters). All this repetitive and mind-numbingly boring. Oh, in-between storylines you get something like this. Or you get the hated Beerman character trying to explain something and be funny at the same time. Or you get crass or Fourth Wall breaking jokes and 'Deathworld is the most hated comic' strips. (I whole-heartedly agreed with that one then.)
You really really got the impression violence in Deathworld, at least, is the answer to everything.
The sad part was that the random violence didn't strike me as funny... and it was being set up as the punchline.
(Reading the comic)
Ping: GAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!
*nearly tears her hair out*
Ping: All right, who wrote this bloody crap?!
Anyway, just so you know, I was quite close to giving up. There were many many moments when I seriously considered just stopping altogether and writing a review that would have put the one I did of Gigawhut? to shame.
Then something miraculous happened. The comic suddenly changed directions. The name of the storyline was The Dark Heart. And for the first time... or so it seemed to me, we had a plausible storyline, moderately realistic character development and a plot instead of random violence and crass jokes. Granted, it built on stuff that was lightly touched from the previous massacre storylines, but suddenly it all fell into place.
I'm not saying the entire comic suddenly became palatable over the course of a few strips, but you could feel the difference. It had a direction. And it gained character.
At any rate, for the first time since the beginning of the strip, I actually found myself enjoying the read. (As opposed to hoping desperately for it to end soon. Always a bad sign, that.) It was also around that point when the strip went full-colour too, which was a definite plus. The characters got developed out of their stereotypes (That silly goth boy, for instance. Even Beerman became bearable), Rudi cut down on usage of the word fu¢k, and we had less of the very unamusing random violence.
Over the course of the next 400 pages or so (I did mention the archive was quite substantial, right?) the various storylines kept getting better and better, the characters interacted, changed and developed... we saw some interesting plot twists and a violent storyline that wasn't boring (The one where Matt got abducted by the aliens).
And I was actually surprised to find at the end of the read that I had developed what could only be called a fondness for the characters of the comic.
Sometimes a light surprises.
Problems:
Roughly most of the first 200 strips. Minus the beginning part. Please don't make me go through them again *cries*
The the sad part is, most people trying out the comic will probably never make it past the 197th strip to get the where the comic stops being some university self-insertion and inside-joke riddled strip, and instead matures into the real Deathworld.
Overall:
This comic holds the unique postion of being a comic I absolutely HATED in the beginning, and quite liked in the end.
Yes, it is possible to do so. Like I said, there's an insane number of pages in the archive. You could say it became an acquired taste.
I really could have done without the horrible beginning though. *shudder* I think I need a break after reading almost 600 pages in one afternoon too. Thank God I have broadband now.
The Next Leg:
AHA!
Looking through "Webcomics I read" page, I spot an old Graphic Smash neighbour of mine. Clue: The name of my comic is The Jaded. The other comic was always listed after me alphabetically.
Watch out, Dave! I'm coming in!!!
Wow! I see that this month's issue really seems to be dominated by the Modern Tales family. I spot James Kochalka (American Elf), Dylan Meconis (GirlaMatic), and Gene Yang (Modern Tales).
There's also a surprise review of my friend Ryan Kolter's comic Reasoned Cognition on the line. The surprise is because being pre-occupied with his impending nuptials I think he doesn't even know about that existence of the review yet. In comparison to the other two reviews, the review for Reasoned Cognition is short and sweet, just the way I like it.
Speaking of the reviews, the WCE reviews sure are heavy stuff! When reading them, I couldn't help but feel the contrast between theirs and those on this humble little blog. They sure live up to their name of 'Examiner' and scrutinise those comics to the last inch! Whereas I just hammer them out from the point of a reader.
It got me thinking: Do these things I write on this blog really constitute as reviews or am I just classifying them? Looking up on the Dictionary.com definition I found:
re·view v. re·viewed, re·view·ing, re·views v. tr.
1. To look over, study, or examine again.
2. To consider retrospectively; look back on.
3. To examine with an eye to criticism or correction: reviewed the research findings.
4. To write or give a critical report on (a new work or performance, for example).
5. Law. To reexamine (an action or determination) judicially, especially in a higher court, in order to correct possible errors.
6. To subject to a formal inspection, especially a military inspection.
I guess I do fulfil the criteria. A bit. Not in the same way, but oh heck...
On to the 'review'!
Comic: Deathworld
By: Rudi Gunther
Genre and Setting: Sci-fi, University-life, Humour, Story,
Art Style: Cartoony, Inked, Early strips B&W, latter strips in full colour.
Is About: Matt Blaster, a futuristic space marine whose squadron is decimated in a failed assault. In the afterlife, he is placed on the Deathworld (Or the U of A, wherever that is), a planet where all being exist just for the amusement of its caretaker. During the course of time. Matt meets other characters in the afterlife and constantly battles both a mad scientist and a bunch of paranormals... apparently just for the heck of it.
Website: http://www.fuddafudda.com/
Frequency: Tuesdays and Fridays. Given that the archive size is currently almost 600 strips, I'd say it's pretty reliable.
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
With a name like Deathworld, I was subconsciously expecting something along the lines of Flatwood or Voices In My Hand. You know, black and white or greyscale art, creepy atmosphere, chilling story/humour... those kind of things.
Instead I was quite surprised when the page loaded and I found myself looking at a cartoony page drenched in very vibrant colour. Let me emphasize the vibrant colour part just so you know how startling that particular detail was to me.
The most curious thing about this whole leg is, I actually muttered: "Wha... Superosity?"
Which is silly at the second take because the art is quite different, and the premise for the story doesn't really seem to be the same. Of course, I've never actually read Superosity. I mean, yeah it's a comic by one of the Fab Four (In case you're not familiar with that: the four Keenspot founders) but I never could bring myself it actually start reading the 2000 pages or so that constitute the archive.
So I guess I'll have to admit that my only impression of Superosity so far has been... lots of bright green... and hand-lettering.
Which suddenly explains why I associated Deathworld with Superiosity based on just the superficial similarities I noticed first. Isn't it odd what the human subconscious registers?
Anyway, the site navigaation is mercifully standard and the buttons are clearly labelled and easy to navigate. The vibrant green do make it easier since it makes the comic and buttons stand out against the dark background.
The Concept:
Well, I found the concept of the afterlife being a puppet on a SIMs-like planet and in a university amusing. It's certainly something slightly away from the norm.
However I was sometimes confused by the constant veering between the sci-fi/adventure and university-gag jokes. And how the simulated world doesn't even try to make sense...
The Art:
Pretty consistent throughout.
It looks like ink-work with very little variation.I wouldn't say it's blindingly good, but something in it does remind me a lot of Schlock Mercenary. I think it's the way they draw eyes.
The latter parts of the comic where the colour comes in are actually pretty cool.
The Writing:
Personally, I quite liked the beginning, where the space troopers storm the alien planet and get butchered by the stereotype Aliens Aliens, Matt gets killed, and is told that his version of hell will be getting plonked on a senseless planet for amusement of the caretaker of the planet which happens to take after some university called 'The U of A'.
So accordingly, Matt ends up on Deathworld, and the story all but goes rapidly downhill from there. For some reason, Matt becomes obligated to shoot pretty much everything that crosses him. Oh, and he makes an arch-enemy out of the resident evil mad scientist-professor, who in return wants to kill him too. And the stereotypically named Prof. Von Rudenstein proceeds to do so, using a bunch of pretty much useless inventions.
Being swallowed by one of these, Matt meets the fellow space trooper Alison (who is pretty much the geek idealised woman. You know, hot babe, engineer, wears silly armour and kicks major ass to boot). Why exactly Alison is in the stomach of a monster is never quite explained, but I presume there should be a reason that I didn't catch on. Or maybe the Caretaker put her there to make things interesting
Anyway for the next couple hundred pages, yours truly was trapped in a ever worsening cycle of maddingly boring action scenes. All of them were senselessly violent. The worst part of it was that the violence and swearing were being set up as the punchline. Look, people swear in stressful situations. It's a fact of life. But having to hear it every other sentence is rather grating on the nerves, just so you know.
Oh, and just because I don't want my site attracting the wrong search strings, I'm going to attempt to reproduce the language without actually duplicating it.
*readers become confused*
Anyway, this is a typical story-arc:
*The bad guys grumble at how much they hate Matt and send their latest minions/inventions/super-weapons after Matt*
Matt: Whafu¢k?
*minion/invention/super-weapon tries to eliminate Matt, never quite does it*
Matt: Suck this. you fu¢kwad!
*fudda fudda fudda* (sound effect of guns)
*After some measure of battle, bad guy dies*
Matt: *some cheesy wise-crack*.
Now repeat several times, with infinite variations (i.e. Different monster, different character involved. Maybe different way of killing monsters). All this repetitive and mind-numbingly boring. Oh, in-between storylines you get something like this. Or you get the hated Beerman character trying to explain something and be funny at the same time. Or you get crass or Fourth Wall breaking jokes and 'Deathworld is the most hated comic' strips. (I whole-heartedly agreed with that one then.)
You really really got the impression violence in Deathworld, at least, is the answer to everything.
The sad part was that the random violence didn't strike me as funny... and it was being set up as the punchline.
(Reading the comic)
Ping: GAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!
*nearly tears her hair out*
Ping: All right, who wrote this bloody crap?!
Anyway, just so you know, I was quite close to giving up. There were many many moments when I seriously considered just stopping altogether and writing a review that would have put the one I did of Gigawhut? to shame.
Then something miraculous happened. The comic suddenly changed directions. The name of the storyline was The Dark Heart. And for the first time... or so it seemed to me, we had a plausible storyline, moderately realistic character development and a plot instead of random violence and crass jokes. Granted, it built on stuff that was lightly touched from the previous massacre storylines, but suddenly it all fell into place.
I'm not saying the entire comic suddenly became palatable over the course of a few strips, but you could feel the difference. It had a direction. And it gained character.
At any rate, for the first time since the beginning of the strip, I actually found myself enjoying the read. (As opposed to hoping desperately for it to end soon. Always a bad sign, that.) It was also around that point when the strip went full-colour too, which was a definite plus. The characters got developed out of their stereotypes (That silly goth boy, for instance. Even Beerman became bearable), Rudi cut down on usage of the word fu¢k, and we had less of the very unamusing random violence.
Over the course of the next 400 pages or so (I did mention the archive was quite substantial, right?) the various storylines kept getting better and better, the characters interacted, changed and developed... we saw some interesting plot twists and a violent storyline that wasn't boring (The one where Matt got abducted by the aliens).
And I was actually surprised to find at the end of the read that I had developed what could only be called a fondness for the characters of the comic.
Sometimes a light surprises.
Problems:
Roughly most of the first 200 strips. Minus the beginning part. Please don't make me go through them again *cries*
The the sad part is, most people trying out the comic will probably never make it past the 197th strip to get the where the comic stops being some university self-insertion and inside-joke riddled strip, and instead matures into the real Deathworld.
Overall:
This comic holds the unique postion of being a comic I absolutely HATED in the beginning, and quite liked in the end.
Yes, it is possible to do so. Like I said, there's an insane number of pages in the archive. You could say it became an acquired taste.
I really could have done without the horrible beginning though. *shudder* I think I need a break after reading almost 600 pages in one afternoon too. Thank God I have broadband now.
The Next Leg:
AHA!
Looking through "Webcomics I read" page, I spot an old Graphic Smash neighbour of mine. Clue: The name of my comic is The Jaded. The other comic was always listed after me alphabetically.
Watch out, Dave! I'm coming in!!!
Saturday, October 2, 2004
9th Leg: Spells & Whistles
Comic: Spells And Whistles
By: Tauhid Bondia
Genre and Setting: Fantasy, Parody, Humour
Art Style: Inked, Full-Colour, Stylized Realistic
Is About: E'los, cynical elven mage, sets out to gather a motley band of heroes to defeat the Great Evil that threatens to destroy all of Middle Ear... I mean, the world they're in.
Website: http://www.spellsandwhistles.net/
Frequency: Unknown. Currently on Hiatus
Availability: Free
First Impressions and Presentation:
Well... I can tell I'm not going to be complaining about the art or anything, that's for sure.
The website design is nice and professional, with good use of colours... Navigation is obvious and simple, although I don't see the point of having the double rows of buttons, though.
The Concept:
Possibly the most cliche of all cliches: hero sets out on a quest to save the world blah blah blah gathers companions which span different races and classes with differing abilities blah blah blah defeat ultimate evil dark lord blah blah blah. I'm sure you can fill in those blahs yourself.
Actually, it's a slightly cliche take of a cliche... that is: parodying the fantasy cliche. These things have been popping up all over like mushrooms after the rain. I wonder why?
At any rate, there's nothing fantastically original about the concept, but then again I've always said, success also lies in good execution, not conception.
The Art:
Spectacular!
Expertly drawn, inked and the colouring is clean and purty! It looks good enough to eat!
There's been some hoo-hah over some of the characters looking a bit too much like the characters of PvP a few months back. I regret to say I never caught any glimpse of the art before Tauhid went over and redid the archives but I note the although some very faint (but undoubtable) resemblances remain, no one with any modicum (don't you love that word? Modicum!) of perception could mistake Rakne or Green Milton for Jade and Skull now.
All that said, backgrounds are rather simple and the majority are gradient fills. Nothing wrong with that... it does help focus the attention of the intricately drawn main characters.
Oh yeah! Elf Only Inn cameo!
The Writing:
Pretty all right. The strip aims to be funny, and although the majority of it is mildly amusing, some episodes did have me laughing out loud.
All in all, the joke writing fairly good, and there's some fun repeating jokes that are set up well in advance to make things funnier.
Story-wise it's pretty much the predictable arc of a typical fantasy quest story or an RPG game. I do get the feeling I'm going through essentially the same story I've read somewhere else before, but this time with much much more spiffier art! I guess this series really is all about the jokes.
Personal beef: Why is it, in every permutation of the fantasy genre, 'elf' remains 'elf' while 'hobbit'-esque races get called 'halfling', 'kender' or 'wanderling'? I'm really curious why fantasy writers don't stick to just one. Stop laughing. I'm serious!
Addtion: I forgot to mention, Mr. Bondia is quite the master at using panels to convey time and pace the story/punchline. Nice stuff.
Problems:
Some of the bantering the beginning gets a bit old, especially the poking fun at Lord of the Rings part. It's funny in it's own right, I know... it's just been done a tad too often by too many different people.
And yeah, I HAET BEING LEFT HANGING in the middle of a story!
Like my friend Chuck says, hiatus is the six-letter four-letter word. :(
Yeah, yeah... I know Mr. Bondia is busy with his syndicated comic Suzie View, and all the best to him... but I'm dying of curiosity in the meantime... *sniffles*
Overall:
I can see S&W's appeal to the masses. It's light humoured fun, great for unwinding after a hard day's work or something else. Would I recommend someone read it? Depends. Because of the hiatus it might be a cruel thing to do so, but generally I think it's something someone new to webcomics would love.
It's a well-done comic. I do like it.
The Next Leg:
Whoa! the links page is a solid mass of of teeny link buttons!
Do you know what this means?
*closes eyes and clicks a button at random*
And this is what I clicked.
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