36th Leg: Sam and Fuzzy

I couldn't find a link image from their link page, so I borrowed one from the archive page instead


Comic: Sam and Fuzzy
By: Sam Logan

Setting and Elements: Present-Day, Alternate reality 
Content Type: Humour, Adventure

Art Medium: Black and White, Line Art
Art Style: Stylised Cartoony

Is About: The adventures of the eponymous Sam, a "normal small-town guy" and his friend Fuzzy. Who is a bear... like... thing...

Website: http://samandfuzzy.com

Frequency: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
Availability: Free

First Impressions and Presentation:
The page is very nicely done. It's very clean and functional, it really compliments the art well. 

And from what I can see the art is very cute indeed, black and white with clean lines, cartoony portions. I really have no idea what this comic is about with a title like "Sam and Fuzzy" so anything goes.

On a side note, I find the little details, such as graying out the ads on the side of the page to match the rest of it a very nice touch.

Getting good vibes so far, and special bonus points for the "Read from the beginning" link so handily displayed! *clickety click!*

I have to say I am impressed at the lengths this comic goes to make it friendly to new readers. There's an introduction and a recommended starting point, Plus a handy bookmark feature too boot. 

The Concept:
Sam and Fuzzy seems to be founded on the premise of epic, whacky adventure of a normal guy in really abnormal situations. And with a really abnormal companion (In this case, Fuzzy)

Jumping in from the storyline "Noosehead", it follows the exploits of "Crush" (Sam's nickname) who is a fugitive hiding from a bunch of very angry ninjas by being a roadie for the superlatively famous death metal band Noosehead. Of course jumping in at this point I got a bit disoriented, so it took me a while to figure out the concept.


The Art:
Sam (The artist, not to be confused with the character Sam) has a very consistent and distinctive cartoon style. A lot of his character designs are elegantly simple but expressive, although some of the simplicity goes a little too far that it is hard to tell what some of the characters are supposed to be at times. For example, I had no idea Fuzzy was a bear. I thought he was a robot for a good few chapters...

Similarly, I'm not a big fan of Sam's (the main character)'s rather clownish design once he ditched the "Crush" look. A bit too simplistic when you compare it against most of the others. Still, the characters are nothing to complain about, you can tell most of them apart easily, except for most of the ninjas, but then that's intentional.

The background art is in keeping with the character art... minimalistic yet suggestive and suitable. Logan keeps it devoid of superfluous detail, with just enough to let your imagination fill in the blanks. 

All in all the art is solid, once you get used to the style, which may be a bit strange to some. 


The Writing:

At first I felt very confused, probably due to too many characters being introduced at the same time. Granted, it was probably because I jumped in at the recommended storyline instead of starting at the beginning, but after the initial confusion things sorted themselves out and I started to follow the story. Plenty of helpful recaps are provided and while I have no idea how annoying they might be to someone who has read starting from page one, they work for the new reader if you're prepared to accept that a lot of these characters have bloody convoluted pasts.

Characterization of a lot of the secondary characters are excellent. Sam starts off a bit flat ad Fuzzy is annoying but after a while (especially in the recent story arc) Sam's character really starts to develop. Fuzzy is still annoying but you develop a tolerance to him after a while, which presume is the point.

The story plots start off relatively humourous (the lead singer of the death metal band is sick of depressing, angry music and wants to change his musical direction to folk songs, much to the horror of his recording company) and moves on to an epic, full-blown, convoluted conspiracy theory (the recording company is evil, meanwhile Sam is destined to be the ruler of an army of evil ninjas who all want to kill him). 

Surprisingly the story weaves together pretty well. Being the sharp-eyed martinet for gaping plot holes, and with a plot this complicated, I was surprised I didn't spot any that rang my warning bells yet. That's not to say that it's one of those comics that start out humourous and move on to be unbearably draggy and serious. In fact despite the increasing scale of the storyline, funny moments that had me barking in laughter were liberally sprinkled throughout the pages. (The name cards for the ninjas are my personal favourite)

Problems:
I'll be honest and admit I'm picking nits here. As I mentioned before, there are a little too many characters to wrap your head around at the beginning. Some people may have the patience to read through the first part until things start making sense. Others would just skip the whole thing.

The other thing is quite trivial but had a bit of an impact on my read. There are many guest comic periods throughout the run. Unfortunately most of them were just popped in mid-storyline with no option to skip them altogether. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind guest strips, most comics have them. Some of them might even be awesome. I just don't bloody like them in the middle of my first read of a comic, especially if they are in between pages of a gripping storyline. Pop them into their own section or gimme a link to skip them, please.

Overall:
All in all I enjoyed Sam and Fuzzy. It didn't quite blow my mind and keep me reading into the night like Dr. McNinja did, but it was relaxingly entertaining. It was a good read although I almost wish I hadn't started from "Noosehead" but from page one instead. It would have allowed me to escape this nagging feeling I was missing out on quite a bit of background during the whole time I was going through the archives. I might just add this to my read list and check back once in a while :)

The Next Leg:

From the lineup on the Links page, Dresden Codak looks interesting. It's an rather odd name, I dare say I should be able to tell you why it's called that by the time I complete the next leg of my journey.

Renovating....

I'm doing a bit of renovating guys, that includes upgrading the template to the new blogger version (which hopefully has a better navigation than this one). Webcomic Finds won't be looking like itself for a bit until I work out the kinks! 

Stay tuned!

Hotspot #14: To Tell or Not to Tell?

I have to admit, I have having a bit of a conundrum about something.

I enjoy writing my reviews, and I know a number people do enjoy reading them, and a good number of creators enjoy getting feedback. Some have even written to me to specifically ask for reviews (I'm still trying to figure out how to respond to that. As you know I daisy chain my comic reviews, so even if I do oblige I might have to figure out how to work in detours)

Speaking as a person who draws comics, I value constructive criticism more than praise. I love it when I do get it. 

I believe it's a sign of a mature creator when they can take feedback without getting offended.

So before I start rambling again and such... I was wondering, most of the people whom I review never get to know I review them unless one of their fans stumbles across the review and let them know. And given my penchant to go for lesser known comics this is highly unlikely unless said webcomic creator does a vanity search for themselves on Google.

Would it be wrong... or right for me to let them know via email or whatever that I have reviewed them? 

While admittedly it would be easy to do so for the positive reviews, I am hesitant about doing so for ones I have not been enthusiastic on. For example the creator of Kristy VS the Zombie Army seemed to be so happy in what they were doing, it does not feel right to burst their bubble. On the other hand, I do think they would benefit from reading review and feedback. 

What a dilemma. 

If you were a webcomic creator which would you prefer? What would you do?

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 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: 

1. In the beginning Kristy receives some mystic orb from her parents that she's supposed to protect at all costs. 
2. Hordes of evil zombies show up and take it (and almost kill her in the process). 
3. She recovers from a 5 month coma and swears she'll get it back. 
4. She goes off to train with KungFu Panda Master (who has another apprentice i might add) in a bid to get it back. 
   
5. Meanwhile bad guys discover it is a fake, assume she swapped the orbs, and swear to get it from her.
6. Bad guys attack Kristy and Panda Master, disappointing panda fight cop-out occurs. 
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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". 
10. Eventually Kristy gets the orb and trades it in for the Panda Master.
11. Bad guys attempt to betray her, orb guardian shows up and throws his sword to her and disappears again.
12. Kristy manages to hurt the bad guy, bad guy retreats and gives back Panda Master.
13. 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:

1. Too much fighting, too little substance
2. Plot makes no sense. 
3. 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.
4. 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! 

Hotspot #13: So... Am I For Real?

Thirteen is an unlucky number, or so they say. I never did understand the reason behind it, but it must be pretty big, they rename floors of buildings 12A etc etc just to deny the existence of a 13th floor.

So this is my 13th Hotspot... any connection? I hope not.

Anyway a commenter named Bengo (I do apologise, I suppose it reflects badly on me and my 3 year absence that I didn't know who he was) indirectly posed a question I suspect a lot of you have been wondering to yourself but are too polite to ask... am I for REAL on restarting Webcomic Finds? Sure... as you know I posted a long review recently, going on from where I left off as if nothing had happened. But is there any guarantee I won't suddenly disappear again?

I'll be 100% honest:

No. Not really.

Will there be any guarantee I won't come back after disappearing again?

No. Not really either. Not unless I am dead, then you'd probably be guaranteed of that. (Sheesh, I'm not going to to come back from the grave to blog, people. Not that persistent.)

My point is, Life is unpredictable. People are unpredictable, so too shall this blog be. I will not make any promises I cannot be sure I can keep. This product does not come with warranty.

The other thing is: webcomics have become so much more mainstream to be now (to me at least) that there is no longer a "MUST PROMOTE LESSER KNOWN WEBCOMICS" agenda in this blog that I once started it with. That does not mean that I'll be suddenly reviewing PVP anytime soon. It just means I'll be focusing more on what I want to explore and learn and experiment from my travels, less on the political/social aspects of comics/print comic drama. It's about me exploring and reviewing comics. At my own pace. I'll be doing it for me, my enjoyment and those who enjoy reading and discussing it.

Maybe when I feel less like a fish out of the water (or more accurately, a fish that got out of the water, adapted to dry land and dived back in) I'll start reading the other blogs and get up to speed on what's been happening (and update my links), but right now I am presenting to you Webcomic Finds as it is. Just about exploring comics from the point of view of a first time reader, pure and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you still have reservations about my return, I will understand. I do not expect any plugs and I ask for nothing.



All that said....

I do like having the rest of you coming along for the ride. I enjoy reading your feedback and discussing points about a comic I've just visited with you all. Please do continue if you feel inclined to.


Incidentally, I stumbled over this while looking up on Bengo's Blog: Comixpedia's List of Webcomic Blogs. I chuckled to myself when I noticed Webcomic Finds was listed as Dead and Mummified. Probably deserved, but now that it's updated, does it merit being moved out of category? I'll let it sit there for a while while I decide...

And Hmm.... Mummies... Zombies....

Which reminds me...

34th Leg: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Now if you recall, back in my last actual log I checked out Dementia of Magic. So in grand Webcomic Finds' style, I'm continuing from DoM's link page. There are many well known webcomics there, but the absurdity of the concept made this one stand out:

Comic:
By: Chris Hastings (Pencils and Writing), Kent Archer (Inks)

Setting and Elements: Modern Day, Surreal Reality
Content Type: Action, Humour

Art Medium: Black and white, Pencil and Inks
Art Style: American Comic Book

Is About: The story follows the exploits of Dr. McNinja, of the Irish McNinja ninja clan (I cannot believe I typed that out with a straight face). The Doc, as he is known, has rebelled against his family tradition of being ninjas and becomes a doctor. The stories follow his adventures as he tries to run a general practice and cope with his life as a ninja at the same time.

Website: http://www.drmcninja.com/
Frequency: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays
Availability: Free

First Impressions and Presentation: The white website design is very clinical and well designed. I find it odd that both creators names were not on the frontpage with any sort of copyright notice, but all the information is available on the "About" page.

The illustation on the frontpage, of a ninja in a doctor's labcoat is beautifully rendered, if a little posy and stiff-looking. Overall, it looks to be promising, the premise is definitely unusual. Now to see how it plays out.

There is no "Start reading from first page" link on front page, so off to Archives.

The art style is very old-school comic-bookish, black and white ink lines. It looks pretty good so far. Judging by the preview it's a hugh archive, so looks like I'm in for a long read.

The Concept:
Well to be sure, the concept is unusual. You can have medical sitcoms like Grey's Anatomy and then you can have shows about ninjas. Combining the two is like combining strawberry cheesecake and rice congee. Not something you'd really think of naturally.

The Art:
Like most webcomics, the art starts off a little shaky in the first storyline but steadily improves as time goes on. The comic is in black and white, with clean lines although the artist does make use of what looks like tablet-work for some special effects.

The action looks very well-drawn, although at time I have had a strong feeling that some of the elements in the page have felt traced. Mind you this observation disappears in the later issues, the art is overall very well down and the composition of the pages and panel layout are impeccable.

Character design is very very distinctive. I certainly never had any difficult at any point differentiating between characters even though maybe 50% of the characters are ninjas who never, ever remove their ninja masks. Granted, a ninja who runs about in a white lab coat and stethoscope isn't particularly hard to confuse. Mind you, it's hard to make a ninja in a white lab coat look good, but heck, the Chris Hasting-Kent Archer partnership does it with considerable finesse.

One thing worth of mention is that since the main character is one who never ever (I repeat) removes his mask, all the expression for the Doc is done though what you can see of him, body language and eyes. Speaking from experience, I can tell you this is not easy. And here, it is remarkably well done.

The Writing:
The writing for Dr. McNinja is consistent in a few aspects, mainly that it's funny, and in keeping with the titular character, it's irreverently absurd. All that said, once you can suspend disbelief on the concept, a lot of things make perfect sense.  And it never tries to take itself seriously, and so continually lampoons: internet culture, Batman, the comic book industry, caption boxes, and occasionally, itself.

In short Chris has a very unique, pawky and enjoyable sense of humour, and this really is the hallmark of the series. This doesn't mean that Dr. McNinja is all silliness and no plot however. The plots of the stories, while always absurd, are surprisingly intricate and take care to make sense in the same absurd manner.

Add to this there is some very strong characterization going on in this series. It takes your perceived stereotypes and turns them on their heads. And while the Doc is portrayed something of a wonder (Medical doctors/super ninja) he has is own issues and is flawed and fallible enough to identify with and like. Even the villians are very well fleshed out, and don't get me started on Gordito, Judy (the rather unorthodox receptionist), and the Doc's Fruit and Nut cracker of a family... 

Problems:

Not really much that I can point out, the creators of this comic seem to know what they are doing.

There was one point where I was greatly worried that the comic might have fallen to (Drat I can't remember what's it's called... I just call it GPF syndrome. You can call it the Rowling syndrome too if you like.) the tendency of some humour webcomics to morph into overly serious epic drama comics. But much to my relief, although the overall story took a slightly darker and more serious tone, it never really got angsty or overly serious, and managed to retain the essence of McNinja-ness (there I've coined a new word) that never alienated the reader as much as some other comics did.

The other thing is the most recent storyline touches on a subject I have a problem with. Well, so much that over 3 years ago I wrote an article about it for Comixtalk (previously known as Comixpedia). Granted, it looks more promising this time round given the unconventionality of the writing... Chris might be able to pull this off in a way that doesn't make me roll my eyes. There are always (I am happy to admit) exceptions.

Overall:
I try not to be too gushing or too critical in my review logs, but this is a comic I seriously enjoyed and laughed out loud at. It's a Find, I am very glad I chose it for this leg of my journey.

There's quite a bit of violence, as should be expected from anything with the word "ninja" in it (Unless it's some hunter rolling "Need" on your epic mace in World of Warcraft... oh wait, we murdered a boss for that... nmind) but oddly enough it self-censors profanity, which I suspect is more for comedic effect than anything else.

The Next Leg:
...will be a surprise. There's lot of links in the links page, so you'll see what comes up in the next episode of Webcomic Finds!

Note: I had earlier mixed up names and referred to Kent as the writer when it should be Chris... uh... whoops?

Comicgenesis is Catatonic?

So I haven't been able to update The Longest Sojourn this week due to the site and server being down every time I've tried.

I wonder what's going on?

I guess that kinda rules out me doing any reviews of any CG comics either :(