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:

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...

Stopover: PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi

It's been bothering me a lot that my busy schedule lately means I won't be able to update Webcomic Finds as often as I want to. This is also bad, because occasionally I get interesting bits and pieces of news that I have to wait until the next leg to put up. Which could be as long as a week. Which is bad. Stale news is always a worthless, as news should be well... new.

So I decided to come up with the idea of the Stopover.

Stopovers are basically just quick notes in-between journey legs. Actual content may vary an update on a previous find, the happenings in webcomic-dom, or maybe a new comic that I came across, but not through Webcomic Finds.

Anyway, the first stopover is something I just found through a friend today (who in turn got the link from Megatokyo) :

Everyone reading this blog:
Cartoon Network's... PowerPuff Girls... Fan-Manga? You've got to be kidding me!

*takes Webcomic Finds off their read lists*

Now when you're done shaking your heads and thinking that Ping has really hit the rock bottom, I'd like have my say on why I thought this was worthy of a stopover:

Firstly, a picture is worth a thousand words:


(Thumbnail of comic by Bleedman. Click on the image to see the comic in its full-sized glory)

Oooh and aah over the spiffy art. Then start counting how many CN series you can spot in these two pages alone. (I count The Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack). Then note how ingeniously they've been converted into manga form and yet retain their original recognisability. Drink in the glorious and subtle details of the characters and background...

"What the hell is going on?" you think... so you hit the 'first' button to find out... Now it's too late! You're sucked in!

I know I was. I read this over lunch today (when I should have been working) and laughed my head off. I'm not sure if it's the concept of Cartoon Network toons in Manga, or the "your own colour uniforms" remark or seeing Samurai Jack as a gym teacher with his own fanclub, but I haven't enjoyed a fan-comic this much since... pretty much forever.

The PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi is a prime example of how style and substance overwhelm a concept that is both genius and (in the case, due to copyright issues,) doomed. Take several well-known characters, plunge them together into a single coherent story... and you get something like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or No Rest for the Wicked. The PPG Doujinshi follows the same formula, and succeeds splendidly.

Unfortunately, being a fan-comic, it will probably never get any further than being a labour of love. But WHAT a labour of love it is. The first page is lovingly dedicated to "Genndy (Tartakovsky) and Craig (McCracken)" and the entire work shows meticulous attention to detail to the original series.

Bow to Bleedman. Fan-comics don't get any better than this.

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:

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...

18th Leg: BeeComix

Firstly, I'd like to introduce you to WF-tan, or to give her her full name: Webcomic Finds-tan. She's the personalisation of the Webcomic Finds blog.



Since WF-tan is a traveller, I thought it be appropriate that she'd dress as a backpacker. The pen she has in her hand is a walking-stick, and you'll notice it's in a revolution, like the Lonely Planet logo.

Although I've already been introduced to the OS-tans by one Alan Medlar, I blame friend Rodrigo Pin Nitto for starting up the webcomic versions... the stuff he came up with was so awesome I just had to join in!

Of Pin's stuff, my personal favs:


There are loads more, but I didn't want to wait for permission to post them so you'll have to go to the linked thread to check them out.

Looking at the comparisons between WF-tan and the rest, you can so tell that as much as I try, drawing 'cute' and stylised stuff doesn't come naturally to me. I keep lapsing back into 'realistic'. The more astute of you will also have noticed that WF-tan bears a snarky (sorry Eric, couldn't resist) resemblance to yours truly. The reason for that is fairly straightforward: This blog has sometimes been referred to as Ping Teo's Webcomic Finds, so it's in a way an echo of myself.

WF-tan is by FAR cuter though ;)

Edit: Oooh, more last minute permissions. Just in case you're interested, more Webcomic tans!


FYI, the last tan (the onlinecomics.net one) is done by TheLoserHero, whose comic, Twice Destined I reviewed waaaay back in Leg 4!

Now, A couple of other things I want to mention before we go onto our latest Find:

Firstly, I've been told by one happy Spell & Whistles reader that S&W is BACK! (Thanks Nicole!) Checking out the site I was surprised to find that Tauhid Bondia has joined the ranks of the webcomic artists who have dumped their day jobs to make webcomics full-time (and earn a living doing so).

Personally I earn a bit of money from my Graphic Smash paycheck, but I'd be lying if I said I made a living with it. I recouped the cost of my WACOM graphics tablet from it, but currently that's about it. I can't imagine how Mr. Bondia is going manage, but I salute him for being brave enough to take the plunge. He's certainly good enough skill-wise.

I'm beginning to see a trend. And as I write this, I wonder... for the remaining two months of 2004, how many more webcomickers are going to take the plunge?

Secondly, a moment of silence for Captain Kaff Tagon, who became the latest casualty for Schlock Mercenary's Schlocktober fest. Howard Tayler has a rule about his writing that I both fear and like: killing off main characters. Popular main characters.

In this case, the character he's killed off is one of the main cast, who has been in the comic since the very very beginning. It'd be the equivalent of me killing off Jade Lanner from The Jaded (which is silly, since he's IN the title, but I digress).

It took me ages to forgive Howard for killing off the first doctor in Schlock Mercenary. And although I'm sad that Tagon bit the dust, I'm getting used to it. I must say though, Howard Tayler must be a really happy man right now. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Howard is happy to get rid of Tagon or that he loves playing with his readers' emotions. What I mean is, he must be happy that people can care enough about his creations to mourn them. That must be the ultimate compliment a creator can get.

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (attempted to) kill off Sherlock Holmes, people actually went into mourning, wore black and armbands and all that. I'm not going to be mourning Tagon, but I'll will call a moment of silence.




Provided Howard doesn't bring him back in a year or two ;)

And now finally, the latest leg:

Comic: Bee (Shutterbug Follies)
By: Jason Little

Genre and Setting: Modern-Life, Mystery

Art Style: Cartoony, Semi-realistic, Full colour

Is About: Bee, a spunky young woman who works as a 'photo-finishing technician'. When an odd series of corpse photos start popping up, Bee, who hasn't quite learned that curiosity killed the cat, decides to investigate.

Website: http://www.beecomix.com
Frequency: Unknown
Availability: Free samples, the rest published

First Impressions and Presentation:
Well, the website feels professional... but cluttered. There's so much going on I get slightly confused where to start. Eventually I do click the 'Comix' link and find myself with a selection of more comics. (Seperate series). More confusion as to where to start? Hell yeah.

I take it that the comic with the redhead is the main one, and the rest included are seperate short stories.

Unfortunately ShutterBug Follies appears to be a published comic, and only a free preview is available. However, I'll do my best to review the comic from what I can work with.


The Concept:
Has definitely been overlooked by a lot of others. Most of us never think about what happens to our photos when they are taken to be developed. The obvious one that most people should realise is that the person who developes them sees them. In this case, Bee, the main character, does.

I like the concept, it's certainly something refreshing!


The Art:
Very professionally done, inked and brightly coloured. I particularly like the use of the flat colours and two tone shading... somehow it reminds me of Herge's stuff.

One thing I should also mention, there's some fun variation of faces and body types. A lot of comic artists have this bad habit of drawing characters who could be interchangable if you swapped hairstyles. The characters in Bee definitely do not qualify for this dubious honour. The main character herself departs from the generic heroine body-type. She's short, slightly plump, wears glasses and sports short hair... and manages to be attractive despite... or because of it.

There some detailed backgrounds, and with them quite a few background jokes.

All in all, the art is something you can't complain about. It doesn't have the dazzling quality of some other comics, but it does look good, and like what I keep finding myself saying: It just works so well you never think about it.


The Writing:
Like all good graphic novelists, Jason Little tells a story by showing, not telling. It's a subtle kind of storytelling that takes a lot of work to master but makes SUCH a great improvement in terms of readbility.

The story setup is good and the plot is intriguing. The mystery peels off in layers, and the more you find out the curioser and curioser it gets. I found myself drawn into the mystery like I should be.


Problems:
Nothing much, except for maybe the navigation and site layout, which seems to splatte the reader's attention all over the page instead of focusing it.


Overall:
For, all the good attributes of the comic, it somehow doesn't quite click with me. It's a good comic. I can tell you that. I suspect that it's just because I know I'll probably never find out what happens next that the keenness is gone.

There's some other cool stuff besides the Bee comic though. some of the short stories I liked, especially the 3D comic that made me glad I never had problems with seeing Magic Pictures or whatever you call those things that you have to cross your eyes and half-uncross them to see.


The Next Leg:

Whoops. There doesn't seem to be a links page. You know what that means: BACKTRACK!!

I'm tired, so I'm just going to pick a link at random.

Meow

17th Leg: Return to Sender

Well... at least it's been less than a week since the last Find ;)

I've been bitten by the drawing bug lately, so I've been spending more time drawing my own comic The Jaded than writing up on stuff. I've really been pleased at the developments of my recent colouring style...

I think this is the closest I've ever had to having it look exactly like I see it in my head.

Before I started The Jaded, I've never comicked seriously before. In fact I had no particular ambitions at all, other than practising my art. No great project, no special goals to achieve, not even getting popular or seeing my comic in print one day.

In fact, if T Campbell hadn't popped out of the blue one day and recruited me for Graphic Smash I suspect I would have still been happily pottering away in Keenspace and drawing my comic as long as I got the feedback and criticisms I needed to improve.

But things changed that one Sunday afternoon I got that mail.

It may seem strange that one person's opinion can change another's so much, but it was as though someone had lit a fire in my head and I couldn't put it out. And I couldn't go back to being content with just pottering with no direction in mind. For the first time, I gained ambition. For the first time, I knew what I was going to do and why I was drawing comics.

I have another project in mind. A dream project that one day I hope to get good enough to do. I already know the name for it. I also know how it will end. I already know what I want to do with it.

I won't rush. I'm not even 21 yet. I have plenty of time to learn and practise and get good enough to do it right.

But the day when I can consistently produce something like the little snippet above will be the day I consider myself good enough to start on Exeat.






Comic: Return To Sender
By: Vera Brosgol

Genre and Setting: Mystery, Horror, Adventure, Modern Day

Art Style: Stylised inks, semi-cartoony, blue-shading

Is About: Often, who has just moved into his own place, realises that the low rent may not be entirely due to the fact the previous elderly tenant died in his sleep there. Mysterious mail keeps coming from the mail slot set in the wall, and undercover monsters keep trying to get in via the front door.

Website: http://rts.lunistice.com/
Frequency: Sundays, whenever Vera is free
Availability: Free

First Impressions and Presentation:
Wow?

I believe I actually said that out loud when I first saw the page. I'm not sure if it's the way the comic blends with the elegant page design (Or the way the elegant page design blends with the comic, if you want it put another way) but... Wow. I can tell I'm going to like it already.

There is no comic on the main page, but the pages are listed instead, archive-style. They are clearly labeled and in order, so it's not so much a problem to figure out where to start.

The page to page navigation links are hard to find though. The fact that they're miniscule and powder blue against white probably doesn't help either.


The Concept:
Chalk one up for Pretty Darned Original.

It's so good I really don't know where to begin. Mysterious letters with instructions that drop from nowhere... Odd things that happen if you don't carry out the instructions. Odd things that happen even if you do. Plus monsters that keep trying to come in but can't if not invited. All on a backdrop of a guy who's just moved out of home and trying to get used to it.

Chilling and amusing at the same time. So good.


The Art:
Pretty much cinched it for me at first glance. It's fantastic inkwork... simplified but still expressive. There's some remarkable use of line thickness and colour for shading. Plus some stunning crosshatching for texture.




I'm not sure how to classify the art style... The characters have large eyes and small mouths... (well, at least Often and most of the other characters do. Colette certainly does not ;) ). The hairstyles are also spiky and rather stylized. One would automatically make the connection to call the artstyle Manga, but for some reason I hesistate about doing so.

Mainly because I don't want to give people the wrong impression. The art style might have been sightly influenced by it, but when I read it, I don't think 'Manga!' and so I do not consider it so.

Whatever you may call it, it's good. See the detailed backgrounds, the fantastic perspectives, and the pure prettiness of the whole thing. The page compositions are excellent and although the hand-lettering can be slightly messy and difficult to read at times, I like it. It gives the whole comic character.


The Writing:
There are few pleasures greater than finding a comic with writing that lives up to the art.

Vera has a uncanny ability to pace her comics. She doesn't drown her readers with information (I'm sad to report your truly still has a bad habit of doing this), knows when to pause just before a joke, knows when to spring a horror or surprise on the reader when they least expect it.

The dialogue is also exceptionally realistic. In day to day conversation, people don't give gramatically correct speeches: the words they use are short and to the point. Whatever gets the gist of the message across. (Please don't kill me, Lynn Truss!)

The characterisation is spot-on. Often and Colette feel like real people to me. The goons over at the where Often works remind me of people I know in real life. Often and Colette are best friends, but they have their moments of friction. And I care about the chracters and whatever happens to them. When a monster menaces Often, I get alarmed. When Colette does something silly, I roll my eyes and slap my forehead. When Colette saves the day, I forget myself and clap in delight.

As I mentioned back in my review of Flatwood, comics that can draw emotions from readers have the hallmark of good writing.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a frigging good comic.


Problems:

The first problem I noticed was the navigation. Like I said, the arrows are miniscule. And blue against white... it takes a lot of squinting to see them.

The second one can't be helped: Irregular updates. I symphatise with Vera though. The woman's got her priorities right.


Overall:

*grin* This is silly, but two things in the comic really tickle my sense of humour:

1. The main character's name is an adverb
2. The mysterious mail slot goes "PING!!!" when a new letter appears.
   I know it's lame... but I can't help it!

Clock another Find to go in my check every-now-and-then list.

I've really hit a streak of good comics lately. You'd think that hitting them one after another would make me get a little less impressed at each successive one, but so far it hasn't happened yet.


The Next Leg:

Webcomic Finds is all about creator recommendation. So when I see something like this in the links page for a comic:

Beexcomix - Wow, says Vera. Funny, beautiful, suspenseful, and drawn by a New Yorker. One of my very favorites. The book is now OUT (and it's frickin' everywhere), so go buy it!

I know where I'm going next leg!

16th Leg: Copper

It's been a week since my last Find, I think. Almost a week. But I've been busy.

Trying to updating Finds very frequently is a bit more difficult than if it were a news site, really. While it'll highly unlikely I'll ever run out of comics to read, every post is a review, which does take time to read about, digest and write

Sometimes real life just gets in the way. but like I learnt after a partially webcomic-induced nervous breakdown of trying to do too much, sometimes you just gotta know when to not do something when there's something more important.

But enough of rambling, I'd like to introduce you to this gem of a comic:



Comic: Copper
By: Kazu Kibuishi

Genre and Setting: Present-day, Imaginary World, Introspective

Art Style: Stylised Cartoony, Inks, Awesome Digital-colouring

Is About: The musing and adventures of Copper and his faithful canine, Fred in both real-life and imagined dreamscapes.
Website: http://www.boltcity.com/
Frequency: Monthly
Availability: Free

First Impressions and Presentation:
The link to Copper from the previous site was directly to the archive page, which led to some considerable confusion to how I should start. Instead of the traditional "First comic here" style of navigation, we get a page full of thumbnails. I did immediately note the distinctive art style. And the simplicity of the page only serves to enchance the breath-taking beauty of the art.

Of course, eventually one figures out to start from the bottom-most comic.

The Concept:
The premise behind Copper is relatively simple: You have a boy and his dog. And you have a boy and his dog and the boy's imagination and what he does in them.

Somewhat evocative of Calvin and Hobbes or the early strips of Alice, but much much much more beautiful, wistful, thought-inducing and profound.


The Art:
Exquisite. The art for Copper is so beautiful that after I've read the comic, I stop, go back to panel one then go through it again just to admire the art. There's not much use of fancy gradients in the fantastic colouring, but flat colour in wonderful backgrounds and soothing compositions are such soothing eye-candy that you can't help but fall in love within the first 0.5 seconds of glimpsing it. I'm especially astounded by Kazu's use of colour to depict form and motion. Awesome!

The drawing is excellently stylised: simplified and with clear, minimal ink lines. I love the way Kazu draws everything, from the extremly adorable Fred to the scary looking smiley slaves. Somehow everything works, and is so right that you never think about it because you have the feeling that that is how it's supposed to be.

There also some beautiful and subtle use of camera angles, moving horizons and perspective.

In short, some of the best art I've ever seen, and this is NOT hyperbole.


The Writing:
There isn't really much of a plot continuity, but that's is not what Copper is about anyway. The writing's main purpose seems to be to catch those fleeting notions, fancies and dreams we once had and forgot we had; those things we see in dreams and can't remember when we wake up.

There's some beautiful philosophical meaderings as well.

I really like a comic that makes me think.


Problems:
The schedule is probably the main problem. A page per month is a little difficult to pull off. For all good things there's patience, but sometimes there's also impatience...


Overall:
Reading Copper is like coming in from a grimy, rainy day in some urbanised, crowded city and walking into your living room to be transported into a beautiful and peaceful garden. The air smells sweet and the only sound you hear is soft lapping from a pool of clear water.

Such beauty in perfection that it makes you want to cry and be happy crying.

Copper may be an element in the periodic table, but it's a rare gem for webcomics.


The Next Leg:
There's a nice list of comic. Not sure what to pick.

Return to Sender rings a bell though. I think there was a recommendation for it on the Copper archive page.

Who am I to refuse a recommendation? ;)

15th Leg: The Japanese Beetle

While doing my post-Find checkups (that is, going back and checking up on how previous webcomic Finds have been doing) I was rather surprised to see a reaction on the latest strip of Gigawhut?. If you recall, I didn't exactly praise it to the high heavens, to put it mildly.

Anyway, shortly after the review was posted and resulted in a further Websnark comment, I received an email from the creator himself. This was not entirely unexpected, but to my surprise, Brian Maze was quite civilised about the whole thing. I have a habit of expecting the worse case scenarios for everything, so it was a relief to find a creator who didn't react by mouth-frothing attack just because I did not praise his work. In fact, he was very fair and honest, raised a few points, and admitted if I had given a positive review, he probably would have reacted differently. In turn I clarified a few points and apologised for the banner error (which belonged to another site, but appears to have magically righted itself all the same ;) )

In short, the outcome of the exchange was: Gigawhut? didn't quite gain my respect yet, but Brian Maze certainly damn well did.

There are very few things I admire more than an artist who can take criticism gracefully. When it comes down to creative work, most creators are act like obsessive parents over their babies. Anything remotely critical is met with draconian and ferocious counter-attack. As a poster by the name of ChaosBurnFlame astutely observed in this forum post:

People that dislike their comics being critiqued or comics that they read being critiqued deploy five basic defenses against the criticizers.

1) Accuse Jealousy: This is the most baseless defense. It implies that the criticizer cannot be objective or is being purely spiteful in the process. This case CAN be true, but has to be examined on a case by case basis and more often than naught in a forum of other artists is baseless.

2) Ask for Credentials: This defense is based on the idea that only ‘certain’ people have the right to be a ‘journalist’ or a reviewer. For the case of comics, its standing is a very slippery slope. The Layman has the right to decide what he likes or doesn’t like, what looks good or looks bad. Asking for a portfolio before you say something sucks is the same as asking for movie reviewers to direct Oscar winners before giving a ‘thumbs down’.

3) Proclaim All Art is Subjective: This just doesn’t work for a comic book. Declaring Ed McGuiness warrants the same obscure artistic considerations like Picasso, Monet, or Van Gough is just loony. A comic book is some of the most commercialized art in the world. The artists work not from their own ideas (there are exceptions, but they are the exceptions!) but from a pre-written script on a pre-selected page size on a schedule on a per page commission. This proclamation is a slippery slope. If given the leeway, someone can proclaim all forms of entertainment is ‘subjective’, thus one cannot say a TV show or movie sucks anymore because it’s ‘all good in its own way’.

4) Proclaim it’s popular, thus it MUST be good: Popularity can sometimes indicate quality, but remember, take ratings with a serious grain of salt. The idea that something is ‘popular’ merely means that X-number of people find it amusing or entertaining. I must admit that I myself find some things like watching a guy getting hit in the groin is hilarious as heck, but that doesn’t mean a show that showcases nothing but people getting hit in the groin is the most well-written entertainment ever. It just means it appeals to the biggest amount to get the highest X-number. In fact, recently we’ve seen on television an inverse relationship in X-number of viewers and quality.

5) Proclaim that Criticism is ‘mean’ and stunts creative growth. On the contrary to this defense, I see it the exact opposite way. That if you are told your faults, you have to acknowledge them, improve, and grow. One of the first things I was taught was to get a thick skin as an artist. It’s a good lesson that every artist should learn. If someone’s drawing a comic that people buy, it’s a lesson that should’ve been long learned. Trust me, if they’re living off their art, they can take a few criticisms.

There's also some interesting discussion of this topic in that thread if you'd care to check it out.

Now some of your will note that I took of the review of the 5th Leg, Saturnalia down. A lot of people got the impression that this was due to complaints from the creator. This is not true, but since it has been persisting so long, I feel obliged to provide a clearer explanation.

Some time ago, there was a review of a certain comic called Sexy Losers on a certain webcomics news site called Comixpedia. The review of the said comic was a mixed one, but mixed enough to be taken as a negative by the creator.

And the aftermath...? It was a nasty one, which pretty much degenerated into a chaotic mass-argument, of which I'd rather not go into. I will say there were two schools of thought involved... one being that webcomic reviews were useless and pointless and served no purpose, and another which disagreed with this.

The relevant fact in all this is that in that mass-debate, the creator of Saturnalia, Space Coyote made her position on reviews quite clear to the public (she didn't agree with them) so when I flipped a coin and found myself faced with Saturnalia as my fifth leg of Webcomic Finds, you will understand that I was rather apprehensive. On one hand there's the thing about journalistic intergrity, and on the other...

Well... if I wanted to be left alone, and made that clear, but still had people hounding me, I think I'd be a little annoyed as well. Likewise, Space Coyote had made her position quite clear beforehand, and if I were to ignore it it just would not be... very nice. So on advice, I asked her for permission.

The review I did for Saturnalia was a very positive one, and I've been told by a lot of readers that it got them starting on Saturnalia themselves. However, Space Coyote asked me to take it down. Not because she disapproved of it, but because she felt it'd be inconsistent of her after all she had said about reviews to accept one just because it was positive. And since I did ask... I did so.

It may sound odd to some, but it made sense to me. Basically it all boils down to this:

If you don't want people's criticisms... then don't be a hypocrite and accept people's praise as well.

Everything is a balance. Praise and criticism are complements of each other. On their own they can both be deadly poisons to the creative soul, but together they are the best teachers any artist or writer can ever have.





Comic: The Japanese Beetle
By: Dave 'The Knave' White

Genre and Setting: Second-Generation Superhero, Futuristic, Alternate realities

Art Style: Manga, Inks. Earlier strips greyscale, latest iteration in full-colour.

Is About: Ken Watanabe is The Japanese Beetle! He's a super-hero who fights crime and protects his city for fame, money and chicks!

Website: http://www.thejapanesebeetle.com/
Frequency: Every other day
Availability: Free (Formerly pay on Graphic Smash)


First Impressions and Presentation:
I can tell I'm going to like it already.

The website is nice and bright- the art on the front page is in lovely colour and the art looks downright yummy. I don't remember the Japanese Beetle being in colour, but I'm not complaining.

The navigation is confusing though. Apparently JB keeps going through rebirth cycles. One does get rather confused which one to pick. First button takes to the first strip of the current rebirth... which leaves you wondering: Did the previous run of JB get kicked out of continuity?

At any rate, I'm going to go through just the 2003-2004 strips, since I take the earlier stuff was more of 'college-paper' experimental.

Really like the header, by the way. For some reason, the phrase "In Glorious BEETLEcolor!" just cracks me up.


The Concept:
The Japanese Beetle is based on a genre which I like to call 'Second-Generation Superhero'. A good example of this take at super-heroism is the brilliantly-conceived and poorly-executed movie Mystery Men. It's when you have superheroes jumping out of of the woodwork and fighting crime and super-villians for reason less than noble. Or as the Japanese Beetle Ken Watanabe eloquently put its: "For fame, money and chicks!".

Kinda like a lot of webcomic artists, really.


The Art:
Slick an spot on! The early stips are very heavily manga-influenced, while the latest offerings seem to be a drawn more in the style of typical American comics, although in all phases they retain the manga-influence to some degree.

I really like the style- It's not cookie-cutter manga and has its own distinctive look. Most of you will get by now that I'm picky and a comic having an individual artistic look scores big points with me.

Dave get big points for the dynamic structuring of the panel. Rotating camera angles, varying close-ups and pan-outs... I also dig the stylised shading of the comic. Big flat areas to suggest form, inked textures for shading, plus white lining to suggest light, varying line thickness for angles. Somehow the inks feel 'lively'. I'm not sure if I'm making sense...

But anyway, if you want to know more about Dave's creating process, he has a cool rundown here.

Lastly, the way Dave draws noses is cute. It makes those already expressive faces a whole lot more expressive.


The Writing:
Is generally wacky, fun and funny. I certainly laughed a lot. I also really like the character of The Japanese Beetle, who despite being relatively normal (no awesome super-hero powers) manages to be a superhero, and a relatively successful one at that. Overpowering always did spoil heroes for me; the characters tend to get categorised by their power types and not themselves.

Plot-wise, some episodes seem to be missing some explanations though. The earlier storylines (like the zombie-salsa one, for example...) left me wondering why Ken didn't get turned into a zombie as well, while at the end of the previous relaunch, I'm left wondering "since when did the JB have his own squirrel-eared manager. And is that the plant-girl??"

Oooh! let me just comment on one thing I found fascinating- there was also some interesting integration of Ken's dual Japanese/American identity. This is really good characterisation, and something a lot of writers don't have the courage to do for fear of being branded 'racist'. In fact a lot of comic have multi-racial characters in their strips, but gloss over their actual heritages as 'it shouldn't make any difference'.

Which is downright silly. Acknowledging that a person of Japanese origin had ancestors who originated from Japan is perfectly sound. Denying that ethnicity exists is just sweeping things under a rug. Which is almost an insult in its own way.

There's nothing racist about recognising ethnicity. It's only racism if you treat someone differently because of it.



Problems:
The aforementioned plot-holes are probably the biggest thing, really.

There's nothing much otherwise, except that the various relaunches of the Japanese Beetle makes it confusing to 'get' which is the real one.


Overall:
The Japanese Beetle is a light and downright entertaining read. I absolutely enjoyed myself with this one...

And I think I've found another comic to add to my read list... if only I could figure out how to integrate 'every other day' into an automatic tabbing schedule...


The Next Leg:
When I first announced my intention of my next leg being The Japanese Beetle, I was faced with the possibility of having to do a backtrack as the links page wasn't yet operational. However, in the space of the few days it took me to read and write this leg, Dave seems to have gotten it up. Which is excellent timing on his part.

Since we're going by recommendations, I'm only picking the bolded links.

I would really have liked to do Narbonic, but Sequential Tart has reviewed it already... I'm not sure if I should.

Copper, on the other hand, I've definitely never heard of. Sounds interesting.

Hmmm... Keep to the trail or get sidetracked? Decisions, decisions...