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Graphics for the Webcomic Commentary article will appear at a later time. It's late and I get weird looks at work when I drag around the caffeine IV drip.
There may be delays in reviews for the next month. I will be housesitting for my parents (keeping an eye on pets) and thus will be mostly away from high speed internet. I will try to have several updates a week, but cannot promise anything. Fortunately, I only live 30 minutes from my folks, so I can sneak back to my apartment (and its DSL) a couple times a week. Hopefully.
Rob H.
Like millions of other Americans this weekend, I succumbed to temptation and went to see the Iron Man movie. While the movie did an excellent job of introducing the character and concept to a viewing audience which predominantly knows little of the character or concept, what struck me was a moment early in the film when Stark's captors recorded a message in arabic (I think), without the benefit of subtitles. This actually was important later in the film when the translated message revealed just how deep the villain's plans went. Unfortunately, it is far more difficult to transpose this audience confusion into the prose aspect of comics.
When it comes to language differences, webcomics borrow a page from their print brethren, with text often given in English, with a notation or brackets revealing that the language is translated. The more elaborate comics will go so far as to provide the original language, often presenting a translation at the bottom of the panel or page. However, sometimes an artist will feel the need to present the same confusion characters feel to the reading audience. Thus we get word balloons full of jibberish, coherent only to those people who know the language or willing to suffer through a translation program. Even then, it doesn't always work well.
Of course, there are times when the art carries understanding better than the words, such as one episode of Megatokyo two years ago, and another from a little over a year ago. In these cases, it is the characters themselves that convey understanding with expressions and body language. Indeed, the best of stories can be told without even a word spoken, relying only on character facial expressions and body language to tell the tale.
When it doesn't work, such as this update of Evil Overlords United (specifically the Thingie back story), the audience is left with no knowledge of what's going on and a confusion perhaps greater than that of the character. For those people who don't other visiting forums, the language is a phonic cutting of Quebecan French and English (which means that online translation programs would be completely ineffectual). Even translations given on the site's tagboard proved too transitory for the casual reader, who would find the scene beyond their comprehension and result in them shrugging and moving on to another comic, rather than struggle to understand what's going on.
Seriously. What harm would there be in presenting a translation at the bottom of the page? It's obvious that Zworgue doesn't know what's being said. Keeping the audience out of the loop makes no sense. There is nothing vital being said here, no secret of the villain that will be revealed with a "translate" button on a computer later in the movie. Nor is there any great story shown, using facial expressions and body language to help reveal either what is being said... or what effect those words give even without understanding.
Is there a time for not revealing what is being said in a comic? Definitely. If, like in Iron Man, the words are so vital that concealing them helps present a twist later in the story, then the words should be concealed. Inevitably, someone will translate it... but most of the audience will have no clue. But if the foreign words are used just for atmosphere, then a translation below the comic will help keep the audience happy and interested. Otherwise you risk losing your audience to other comics that don't dick with their readers to that extent.
Robert A. Howard
Setting and background are two important aspects of any story. In this, comics have an inherent superiority over prose literature due to the visual nature of the medium. However, even comics have some limitations as to how to reveal background story. Traditionally, stories often rely on the "uninformed innocent" who needs to be told what is going on; this can be done humorously (such as with the forgetful dufus Gourrey from Slayers) or more seriously as is found in numerous epic fantasies (to the point that any Evil Overlord worth his grain should enforce manditory unbiased education of all rural children to ensure some dumb kid doesn't end up on the path to destroying the Overlord's plans).
The recent Dresden Codak took another approach, in utilizing a flashback of a very young Kimiko pretending to be an alien astronaut in search of cookies. The scene is tremendously touching, and gives us not only a glimpse of Kimiko's mother and of the child that grew up to be a favorite among so many philosophy geeks and science nerds. One thing of interest to me was that her father, whom adult-Kimiko detests, was a roboticist, much like herself, while her mother was a biologist (and studying cloning). Previous comics suggest that Kimiko blames her father for her mother's death. The fact that his experiments were more vital than being at his daughter's side on her birthday is especially telling... suggesting that Kimiko is far more her father's daughter than she might care to admit.
More curious, however, is Kimiko's pursuit of roboticism over biology. Why not follow in her mother's footsteps? Why pursue robotics to the extent she did? Part of this might be the temporary nature of biological life; all life eventually ends. Might Kimiko see the path of robotics as a path into some form of immortality, an immortality that her mother (the parent who seemed to truly love her, compared to a cold and distant father) was denied? Indeed, might she not be looking to find a way to bring her mother back with the cold hard science of robotics? What is clear is that these glimpses into Kimiko's past help to explain her present self to a greater extent. I suspect that it is how her mother died that shaped Kimiko into the woman she is today... and the future she is destined to bring to humanity.
One advantage that webcomics have over newspaper comics has to lie with persistent archives. While this has allowed plot-intensive comics to flourish, it also has allowed comics to suffer from story-bloat, with plots growing longer and more convoluted while becoming more difficult to follow. Many of the older webcomics show occasional signs of this, with story arcs that started out running for a few weeks being replaced by stories that last for years. Yet this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The newest generation of comics has learned from the mistakes of the past, building on larger storylines from the very beginning and intertwining shorter plots into the weave of a greater plot. These graphic web-novels do manage to avoid many of the issues with continuity that such forerunners as Sluggy Freelance and College Roomies from Hell are afflicted with, but can often suffer from such issues as pacing.
On the surface, Garanos looks much like its peers in the graphic web-novel field. Indeed, in the five months I've been reading, I've been chomping at the bit and wondering when the comic was actually going to start moving. Garanos would update three times a week, and some of those updates were voiceless moments, seconds of time where Alex Heberling would show us the story rather than take the quick and easy way out and tell us what happens next.
It is when you step back and start reading the comic from the start that the story and pace truly leaps out. Again, I'm reminded of Sluggy Freelance, this of a classic scene when Gwynn Turned Around. While I wasn't reading SF back then, the mere pause of seeing that comic and going "what the blazes is going to happen next?" got to me. I empathized with readers from 2001 who went through that ordeal, of waiting a whole day to find out just what was going to happen to Gwynn. Only now, I was experiencing it with one of my absolute favorite graphic web-novels.
Nor would the obvious solution, increased panel count, necessarily work here. There are times when Garanos needs that Gwynn Turned Around. Moments of shock. Moments where we're left hanging, not knowing just what will happen next. And I must admit I've rather enjoyed the artwork, even at the expense of not finding out more about the story at the moment. No doubt, later into the story when the pace increases, the panel count will as well. We're in the lulls at the moment, learning more of Garanos's background story and the consequences of her actions all those many months ago.
The original Garanos was based on a short story. It had a beginning, middle, and an ending. Fortunately, Heberling left room to expand from there. Whether the second volume of Garanos has as tight a story remains to be seen. Once you've read through the archives (and I must once again stress that the Harbinger volume is absolutely stunning in execution and plot) it may feel like the comic is taking forever to get anywhere. But much like the rest of the archives, Garanos is best read in one sitting, to allow the pacing to flow. Much like the old flip books, the story is far greater as the whole than just the sum of its parts.
Robert A. Howard
It's difficult trying to sum up Emergency Exit in just a few sentences. I mean, I could describe EE as a heroic quest adventure set in an urban fantasy setting. I could go on about its varied and growing cast, each with a rich background that even now slowly is emerging. I could even talk about its massive crossover potential utilizing dimension travel (and two crossovers and a drive-by multi-day cameo during the Crossover Wars to date) as part of its "quest storyline." But doing so ends up only telling a bare portion of EE's story.
This is both strength and a weakness for the comic. When EE first started out, it felt like your typical "wacky roommate" comic, with Eddie as the increasingly eccentric (and by that I mean batshit insane) comedic relief to Bob. Add in a super-intelligent cat (who has a massive crush on Bob... and yes, you can feel as disturbed at that thought as I do), and their eventual roommate Saya who is almost sociopathic in how she acts around people, and you have the firm foundation for a comic replete with wacky hijinks and pain-filled situations. And by pain-filled, I mean Saya physically pummeling those who annoy her. The cast grows from there to include Bob's roommate, the demon possessing Bob, Bob's girlfriend, the alien mailman with a hook for one hand, and more.
The problem is, we don't really know what's going on. Of course, Bob and the gang don't really know what's going on either, but that doesn't stop them from going on a literal artifact hunt, using a dimensional portal in a neighbor's cupboard to go from world to world. Nor are these traditional artifacts. I'm not talking the typical magic sword and shield. No. The first one looks like a psychedelic-painted car. The second, a necklace with a smiley face. The third, a psychedelic hourglass. (If you've noticed a pattern - funky color patterns - you're not alone.)
Nor are they alone in this artifact quest. Not only are the apartment kids searching for the artifacts for their landlord, but fairly inept demonic baddies, working for the whimsical and not-exactly-evil Lord Kyran, are also after the widgets. And in some ways these villains are actually more interesting than the good guys. Nyos, for example, often speaks down to people with obscure words, and seems to seriously hate Saya's sister (something he shares with Saya though he doesn't know it). Alkia is much more homicidal and has to be restrained... and has already tried to kill two of the apartment gang. Orulla and Jurinjo are much simpler mentally, with Orulla just blindly following Lord Kyran and Jurinjo starting to question if he truly wants to be with them.
But Lord Kyran takes the cake. Not only does Kyran rely on a six-year-old child to double-check his plans (having obviously taken a page out of the Evil Overlords List), he gives his human researchers pay raises when they please him, and promotes an intelligent and talented human to be his second-in-command. (Okay, he also has the hots for her. But I can't blame him.) Further, it seems that in the past he was the God of Hatred... a role he's trying to avoid (to the point he's left standing orders not to kill or try to kill the apartment kids... and came down on Alkia for disobeying his orders). And yet it seems he too may be manipulated from behind the scenes, though if by Nyos or by someone else remains to be seen.
If I were to try and sum up EE's problems, then I'd say it's trying to do too much. We have several different storylines going on at the same time, a cast of characters that... well, the cast page has settings for main cast, villains, support cast, minor characters, guest characters, and objects, with 54 separate listings. We've several potential relationships (including a protagonist that I don't quite know if he's bisexual or just has no problem flirting back with a blatantly gay neighbor), and Bob who not only has a girlfriend, but gets jealous over his super intelligent cat (the same cat who has fallen for him). Feel free to feel freaked out over that little tidbit as well.
While it works... there are times when it threatens to spiral out of control... and I'm not sure how NJ Huff manages to keep it all together. Still, there are several things that do work quite well with the comic. Eddie is one of them; I'm not sure if he's an idiot savant (with the ability to make impossible inventions) or is just not human (and considering his ties with the landlord... who is definitely not human... it's quite possible). Lord Kyran is the second thing that truly works and makes the comic worth reading. And for all the wacky hijinks, the growth and consideration put behind the characters is the third aspect of EEC that makes it worth reading... even if you'll need crib notes from time to time.
Robert A. Howard
One of the greatest strengths of Order of the Stick has to lie with its characterization. Of course, considering Rich Burlew uses glorified stick figures for the comic, a reliance on art wouldn't get the comic very far, leaving storytelling and characterization as the two key aspects that carry this comic. OotS's reliance on the wacky hijinks of his crew help to counterbalance a storyline that gets rather deep in places... and while some of the hijinks may have been run into the grave, every so often Burlew will unearth a few of the old ones and let them shamble across the monitor like a zombified clown.
Perhaps one of the more amusing of these hijinks has to deal with Elan's little handpuppet, Banjo. The thought of Elan creating his own church based off of the concept of a "God of Puppets" (or rather, the state of mind of a God of Puppets) is somewhat amusing. Fortunately, after running with the puppet for a bit, Burlew buried him deep into the forgotten depths of the world, where he would only return upon hearing the call of Banjulhu... well, it would be fairly certain we'd heard the last of Banjo.
Thus our latest comic, with Banjo's triumphant return as the object of worship for an island of orcs, was a shot out of the blue. And much like Q in the second Star Trek television series, Banjo's appearance here isn't overdone. Enough time has passed for the joke to recover some of its steam, and while it's more than likely that we'll be having Banjo-related wacky hijinks for the next half dozen or so comics, it's workable now. Besides, it should be amusing to watch a somewhat-more-competent Elan deals with his mad godling, buoyed on the worship of an island of orcs, while leaving time for the occasional punchline.
One problem with gaming comics lies with tremendous number of comics of this genre, all struggling to gain the attention of readers. In an effort to stand out, gamer comics often utilize some sort of hook to draw readers in. In this, Sodium Eyes is no different from its peers, using a coterie of attracting young attractively-drawn ladies who are into computers and gaming. Or in other words, good-looking female geeks, drawn in the manga art-style (complete with one girl with light green hair). In fact, in the 36 updates to date, we've not had a single guy appear in the comic. Fortunately, while cute, the ladies of SE aren't drawn provocatively and appear to be more intellectual than sexual, keeping the comic from being too exploitive.
Unfortunately, for all that the ladies of SE are drawn nicely (and surprisingly avoiding that often-abused hook, fanservice), there are some artistic issues with the comic. The primary problem I have is excessive and unnecessary use of Copy-and-Paste. It's obvious that Alfred Lam can draw. When he puts his mind to it, we can have multiple panels of the cast done simply and elegantly enough. Unfortunately, CaP is frequently used as a time-saving measure with little attempt to hide its use through shifts in viewing perspective or the like. As a result, legitimate uses of CaP (such as "frozen time" instances) feel unnecessary, like Lam is copping out rather than taking the time to draw the characters and story.
Much like most comics, SE also suffers from a lack of backgrounds early on (though SE utilizes color gradients to try and disguise this fact). Surprisingly enough, backgrounds (and foregrounds) start making an appearance fairly early on. Rather than rely solely on hand-drawn backgrounds, Lam uses featureless clip art to show such things as tables and the like. While this use of CaP is actually fairly inventive, it does unfortunately result in this world feeling rather empty; outside of the four heroines of the comic, and an overheard conversation on a commuter train, the comic is quite empty of other inhabitants. Much as with the adults in Peanuts, the rest of the world remains unseen and often unheard.
This results in a lot of focus being drawn on our four heroines. And while I might find tremendous amusement in Miya owning a coelacanth named Secant, we haven't really learned much about these girls. Lumina is the child-like member of the cast, attracting birds and butterflies, and being unable to insult others, while Miya seems to delight in taking others down a peg. Neiko is more of a loner and technogeek (with enough spare components to build a new computer for Miya), and Kaela... well, she's dependable and cares for the others but I honestly can't say much about her. And that's really the problem. The comic is character-centric, and the characters don't have much personality.
The comic starts out as a series of shorts, and hasn't really developed an actual storyline per say. While the wordplay between Miya and Neiko (and the results of Miya "winning" a verbal insult contest against the other girl) lasted for a couple of months, there's no real sense of any plot or reason. And that's a shame; rather than use the female gamer geek concept as the foundation for an imaginative and unique plot, SE relies on the old bag of tricks used by so many other Penny Arcade clones. If it weren't for the fact the cast is comprised solely of women, there'd be nothing to differentiate it from so many of its peers. Hopefully, Sodium Eyes will outgrow its flaws. Until it does, I can only recommend it to those gaming geeks who like to fantasize about attractive gamer girls who haven't already been snagged by their more assertive brethren.
Rob H.
The use of talking animals in stories goes back a long ways. Often these animals are used to impart words of wisdom upon the protagonist of the tale, acting in some ways like the voice of God. If you believe the religious claims that humanity is inherently a sinful creature (as per Christian lore), then animals, who never partook of the forbidden fruit, are closer to God than man... and if gifted with speech thus can speak for God. However, often these animals just act as a source of common sense if the protagonist is particularly ditzy or apt to do foolish things... and a source of comic relief when the protagonist has a less comedic role.
While I've never particularly liked the talking cat Teri from Sailor Sun (and indeed in an earlier review stated a desire to launch the cat out of a trebuchet), just recently I had a revelation as to what Teri actually represents. Teri is a mentally-challenged talking animal, making it a first for webcomics as far as I know. The cat exhibits signs of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (he's easily distracted, has difficulty focusing, poor short-term memory, and is incredibly impulsive), and a mental level that... well, if he were a lightbulb people would be taking him out of the socket and replacing him.
Of course, you do have to wonder as to how much of this is due to his upbringing. While Bay tries to discipline him, we've seen Honey on at least one occasion helping this frantic feline with his pancake fix (though not successfully - for all her book smarts, Honey seems to lack a few skills in terms of cooking, or at least following instructions on package mixes). Indeed, I can envision Honey begging her mom (Bay) to buy Teri at a second-hand pet store (one of those shady places where the ferrets are more than half snake, and fish with three eyes or with lasers attached to their heads swim alone in massive fish tanks) and insisting "I'll take good care of him, I promise!"
Naturally it's Bay who ends up having to feed this foolhardy feline, whose crimes include flooding the apartment out of a desire to get some fish, calling pizza parlors in an attempt to get pancakes delivered to him, and just generally tearing up the apartment. No doubt every time Bay and Honey head out, there's a little voice in the back of Bay's head going "Oh dear God, I wonder what that little brat is going to do this time. I'd lock him in his carrying crate but Honey insists it's cruel to lock him up. But these repair bills are killing me!"
It's funny. I, who normally love cats and feline inclusions in comics, hate this cat. Perhaps it's because Teri is the avatar of Wacky Hijinks, a trope given flesh and fur. Or maybe it's because for all the times we've seen this furry menace, he's used as comic relief in a comedy. There's been no real chance to see any actual character development for Teri... something this latest story is changing with Teri ending up loose (and lost) in town.
This latest comic caused something to click in my mind, making me realize that this feline isn't just a source of stupidity and idiocy, but is something more. He's an evolution of sorts for a traditional trope, a shift from the talking animal to a more human animal. Whether Teri actually has ADHD and other mental issues, or is just a victim of wacky hijinks remains to be seen... but for once, Teri's actually making the comic interesting to read.
Rob H.
If there's one thing that is sure to turn me off from a comic, it's an over-indulgence of wacky hijinks. Normally, the hijinks are enough to pull me out of a comic and tossing it in my "read later, maybe" pile. And in many ways, Craving Control fits that bill. However, I found myself unable to pull myself away from this train wreck in progress, and found myself truly amazed at the sheer balls of CC's writer and his portrayal of Lalia, a rather buxom redhead with a... considerably out-of-control eating disorder. And by disorder, I mean she eats a lot (and must also have a monstrously high metabolism in that with all she's eaten, she claims to have gained 18 lbs. since the start of the semester).
Okay. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most politically-correct of people. Hell, I despise the whole political correctness shtick and feel it's an insidious form of censorship. But there were times when I cringed at the situations CC's author put Lalia through... such as ripping out of her dress during a party, and in the process knocking out some guy she was trying to hug. I am not making this up. Nor am I exaggerating when I mention she later squirms (with bloated belly in the way) out of a window, snagging a power line (and pulling it loose) to swing to relative safety while gorging herself on stolen candy.
So not only is Lalia a pig (and one that would mesmerize Garfield), she's a thief. Nor is food-theft alone in her crimes - at the same party she rummaged through someone's closet for clothes to replace her torn dress, and then hid in that girl's stuffed animal collection when she heard the girl returning to her room. I freely admit to lacking the imagination to think up of a hijink so wacky and so idiotic as to encompass this feat. Oh, and the power line mentioned above? It causes a fire. People get hurt. And she looks around in amazement and a coitish little "Did I do that?" on her lips. (Naturally enough she gets away scot-free.)
The comic suffers from an odd form of schizophrenia, at times desperately trying to be a comedy and other times veering over the line to a light-hearted drama. This perhaps is one of the problems CC suffers from. It doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. Add in a decided lack of character development (among both Lalia and the secondary cast) and a plot that has a character pregnant with an idiot-ball (warning, that TV Tropes link sucked 3 hours out of my life tonight), and you are left to wonder just what it is about the comic that is worth reading.
Of course, seeing that fat people and white people are the two remaining topics that it's safe to ridicule, it's plain to see why our protagonist is a food-indulging busty redhead. The writer gets to combine beauty (relatively speaking) and gluttony into an attractive package to ridicule, and get away with the insults to boot. If you don't give a damn about story, and enjoy comics that create caricatures that poke fun of others, then CC may very well amuse you (though with its intermittent update schedule, you might quickly lose interest). But if you aren't as easily amused, or enjoy a good story to build upon your comedic tropes, then you're better off giving Craving Control a pass and moving on to a comic that puts actual thought into its humor.
Rob H.
I must admit when I started writing reviews three years ago, I didn't really have any idea where I was going with this. I started Tangents as an alternative to Websnark... which I felt was ignoring comics that deserved reviews (primarily story comics). But those early reviews sucked, and it took a while for me to find my voice. Since then, I've tried several times to branch out and make Tangents into something more than just another review site. Each time I've failed.
At its core, Tangents is about comic reviews. It is here where the main success of Tangents has been, and it's where I'm going to focus my attention. This means that projects such as my guest-review contest and the world-building project of Tangential Worlds are coming to an end. Perhaps if I'd worked things differently or had more time to focus on these projects, these ideas wouldn't have faltered and died. But there's no point looking back at "could have beens" and failed prospects.
One area where I'm thinking of making some changes in the reviews lies with the current review format. While on the surface the concept of short "Secant" reviews seems a viable means of saving time and condensing the content of the reviews, it has become increasingly difficult to find inspiration for the reviews. While this has led to my reading dozens of new comics to find new ground to cover (and I must take a moment to sneer at the people who criticize me for having read and reviewed so many comics... it is the duty of reviewers and critics to review a wide variety of books, movies, and the like, and failing to do so is a sign of laziness and a lack of professional pride), I've found difficulties in writing reviews even for new works.
The Secants were originally intended to be a brief glimpse into a moment of a comic. They were meant for scenes and for momentary glimpses of characters. They were not meant to be reviews in its entirety. That is what the Tangential reviews were meant to offer... and in an odd twist their positions were reversed. Recent Tangential reviews have been character pieces and webcomic commentary, instead of reviews. I intend on changing that (though I will endeavor to keep the reviews fairly short, if only for my own sanity's sake).
Another thing that readers may have noticed is that the tone of the reviews has shifted to be a bit more critical. I will admit that my associates Steve Anderson and Brett Hainley are more than partly responsible for this; they do not pull their punches when reviews are concerned. If they see something that doesn't work, they talk about it. And while I might not speak negatively of the cartoonists themselves... I know how much cartoonists put themselves into their work. They take every negative comment to heart. If I've said something about their work that they can't stand... it's not an attack on their soul. It's just that I feel the work can be improved... and indeed, needs that improvement, both for the readers' sake, and the cartoonist's.
It's the duty of critics to warn the readers about what they feel is bad, and also to tell the cartoonists where they're weak... and how to improve their craft. I'm not always right. What I dislike, others may enjoy. But there are some basic aspects to storytelling, art, and site design that are keys to a decent comic. Plot failures can wreck the best drawn of stories. Artistic flaws can pull attention away from the most imaginative of stories. And a badly-designed website with poor navigation and problems even finding the comic itself can keep people from even reading the comic in the first place.
Tangents needs to return to that venue. And I need to find what I'm writing to be interesting... else I'll just put out half-fast reviews that don't really tell you what's going on or give you an idea of just what it is about the comic that led me to review it. Hopefully the shift in review style will help me do that.
Robert A. Howard
There are many reasons why comics go on hiatus. One reason can lie with cartoonist apathy, which can happen with older comics that have run for a while and in some cases may be approaching an ending. Often the cartoonist has grown tired of the same old characters and the same old situations and wants to move on. There's little but loyalty to readers and determination to end something that keeps the cartoonist from just throw up his hands in disgust and walk away... sometimes quitting comics entirely, and in other cases starting up a new comic with fresh new ideas that weren't possible with the old strip. It was this that led Casey and Andy's cartoonist Andy Weir to pull the plug on his comic's last storyline and start work on Cheshire Crossing.
However, C&A's fans refused to let their comic die, and started an e-mail campaign to get Weir to restart work on the final C&A storyline. After a year and a half, their efforts panned out, and Weir started updating C&A on a weekly basis. And it's been a long road indeed; C&A started out as a gag-a-day strip, and has deep roots in that tradition. Still, as C&A grew in length, the lure of shorter storylines grabbed a hold of Weir and dragged him into the hazy world of continuity and character growth. And whether it poked fun at science, religion, or the characters themselves, most readers could find something that would be of interest. Indeed, the comic is quite rereadable, and can be a most enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, not all comics can thus be resuscitated as C&A was; some comics falter due to legal reasons and others because the creative team behind the comic broke apart for a variety of reasons. (The Tangents webcomic partly fell apart because my own ideas of the comic's direction and presentation conflicted with my co-writer's ideas. Looking back, I should have listened more to my co-writer.) Perhaps part of what helped in C&A's resurrection was the length of time spent away; absence makes the heart grow fonder, or at the very least dims the less enjoyable memories. Whatever Weir's reason for revisiting his first comic, I'm quite glad he did. C&A deserves the ending Weir had planned... to go out with a bang (much like it began), rather than the silent whimper of permanent hiatus.
Of the three newsprint comics most often cited as inspirations by webcartoonists, Bloom County has aged the least gracefully. Part of this lies with the content area; Berkeley Breathed would often delve into (at the time) current politics and events that lose much of their humor without the context of what was going on when the comic first ran. Thus I'm watching recent updates over at Anywhere But Here, a comic inspired deeply by Breathed's works, and worry that Jason Siebels risks walking down the same road to context oblivion.
Of course, there are some significant differences between the two comics. For all that Bloom County pushed the boundaries of print comics, it was lacking in a strong sense of continuity. Instead, Breathed would skip from daisy field to daisy field, picking short storylines at each before being distracted by something anew. Siebels, on the other hand, has a vision... and knows the fate of our Nameless Protagonist. The beginning and ending are mapped out. It's just the details of the journey that remain apt to change. That, perhaps, is why I see adding U.S. Presidential election humor as starting on a slippery slope.
Looking back at ABH, especially before Siebels rebooted the comic and started fresh from the start (rather than smack-dab in the middle as he initially did in 2005), this is actually something he has done several times, though the one that stands out in my memory is with Hollywood celebrities rather than U.S. politicians. Fortunately the "situational humor" works, whether Siebels inserts Hillary Clinton or creates his own generic politician to fill her shoes. I still wonder though if adding contextual humor for a quick laugh is worth muddying the waters for a deeper and more meaningful story on down the road.
I've not actually read a lot of gaming comics. This might seem surprising, considering that Penny Arcade has inspired countless thousands of fans to dabble in the dark arts of cartooning before finding what little bit of their life has been sacrificed in the vain pursuit of readership and pointless laughs. The field is so cluttered that even the use of various gimmicks rarely helps gamer comics stand out from the dross surrounding them. Into this vast wasteland of mediocrity comes Fanboys, which combines several tropes in an effort to stand out.
We have two guys and a girl living together, each of who plays games from one company platform. Oh, and they almost never change their outfits (to the point that the girl continues to wear a long-sleeve hoodie in the middle of sweltering heat). Naturally enough one of the guys is an obnoxious jerk, while his friend is cheerful and fairly clueless, leaving the girl to fill the middle niche of the decent intelligent one with just enough mixture of cynicism and optimism to be actually interesting. As with so many of its peers, Fanboys started out as a series of one-shots and slowly grew to incorporate continuity and occasional short storylines. And if not for one thing, Fanboys would sink into the morass of other gamer comics with nothing to differentiate itself: Sylvia's preferred gaming platform is the X-Box 360.
That's right, the cute gamer chick is into Microsoft. In an amusing twist, later on Lemmy (who only played Nintendo) ends up "cheating" on his system by trying Sylvia's 360... without realizing that she'd decided to try out his DS. They start dating as a result. Fanboys suffers from several flaws, such as frequent use of CaP and comics that often rely on idiocy. However, there's a certain spark to the characters that kept me reading through the archives and adding the comic to my reading list. If Scott Dewitt would start to branch out into more storylines and less idiocy, then Fanboys would emerge from its peers. Until then, it's just another gamer comic, though one worth reading.
While I've not exactly enjoyed Penny and Aggie of late, I have to give credit where credit is due: this latest P&A rocked. Literally. We've had multiple comics where Karen would behave quite suggestively toward her boyfriend Marshall. This latest strip seemed to set up another of the same-old same-old (especially in light of her latest anti-Penny plots, though we did see that Karen might flirt with other guys, she refuses to be unfaithful... which is one positive aspect to a character who's been in a downward spin for several years now). Fortunately, T Campbell and Gisele Lagace chose to buck the usual trend and end with our two teen lovebirds playing Guitar Hero with each other... and with Karen getting quite into it.
With all the Machavellian machinations going on of late, I've grown to rather dislike Karen's appearances into the comic. The core of the comic is Penny and Aggie, and their interactions with each other both privately and in public settings. In this, Karen and her cronies have disrupted a dynamic that was what truly made P&A enjoyable for me. In shifting to a ensemble cast, the sense of rivalry between Penny and Aggie was shunted aside. Literally, Karen has been threatening to seize control of the comic and knock both titular stars from the limelight... and she doesn't have what it takes to carry the show on her own. Aggie possesses a level of mania (which may be part of what drew Lisa into her coterie) which helps drive the comic (and makes her in many ways the heart of P&A), while Penny possesses a sense of self and unexpected intellect that can result in Penny appearing the more mature of the two... and the Superego to Aggie's Id.
Karen lacks this quality. Her presence is destructive (in many ways), and oddly is aimed at both of the stars of the comic. She tries time and time again to destroy her Master (Penny, who pulled Karen out of her self-hatred and helped shape her into a physically more attractive person... while spiritually she remained stunted and angry) like some fashion-conscious Sith Apprentice. Yet in one strip she suddenly gained some depth. All this time, we've caught bare glimpses of who and what Karen is, and most of it has been spiritually ugly. Competing with her boyfriend, we suddenly get a sense of passion to her... not sexual, but emotional. And if only Campbell focused more on these small moments... perhaps Karen could shift from being an element disruptive to the comic, to an element constructive to the storyline and to the characters as a whole.
I'm not a very big fan of short-form comics. I spent over 30 years reading newspaper comic strips with their bland inoffensive humor and lack of continuity, and encountered very few strips that had much in the way of continuity or of actual humor. The occasional stand-outs in the field managed to shine because they found a way to stand out; Farside had a quirky and bizarre humor that rarely missed the mark, and strips such as Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes won me over due to sheer imagination... at least when compared to their peers. Still, few short-form webcomics really caught my interest, especially with the tremendous selection of comics available.
xkcd sticks out of the sea of short-form webcomics for two reasons. First, it is a stick-figure comic, and a fairly simplistically-drawn one at that (unlike the sleek and colored stick-figures from Order of the Stick). This is an artistic decision that was chosen as even with his early works, artist Randall Munroe revealed some skill in drawing. When Munroe shifts his focus away from the stick figures, this shows. Nor is it just physical art where it shows; the comic can shift from the simplistic stick figures to surreal landscapes to mathematical graphs and functions. It shows a level of imagination that is lacking in far too many comics. Second, its humor works on multiple levels, on a visceral and a cerebral level.
As with most short-form comics, continuity has crept into the strip. There are regular characters (though they remain without names) that are only differentiated by hair, dialogue, and in one case a hat. Indeed, a micro-storyline even erupted over three strips between the hat man and a young stick figure lady who managed, briefly, to one-up his maliciousness with smug superiority. (And it is entirely too amusing to see that the hat man use a submarine to track down the young lady who stole his hat... solely to retrieve it.) For the most part, xkcd remains the domain of one-shots and word plays that require no in-depth archive crawl. Indeed, you could start reading with the current strip, and never look back... but where's the fun of that?
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