Brian Roney’s webcomic reviews

Since posts have been a little slow for myself recently as I rethink a few things about how I’m handling things here, I thought it might be nice to point out some of the other webcomic reviewers. I hope to be back and posting soon, but I want to make sure that I’m accomplishing something, and to that end I’m going to spend a little time thinking about what I’m doing.

I’ve mentioned Ferrett’s webcomic reviews several times, and he’s a wonderful writer. I’d suggest reading his regular blog as well, as he has a take on many different subjects and writes in his journal daily. He reviews webcomics weekly, and specifically webcomics that have traffic less than his own webcomic, Home on the Strange. The vast majority of webcomics he reviews I end up adding to my list of webcomics (I picked up Mansion of E from him, for instance).

Ferrett also pointed out another webcomic reviewer to me,  Mr. Myth. He updates MWF with his various thoughts on current webcomics, including reviews and news. He often links to several comics in a single post, which may overload those of you who are still trying to catch up on the webcomics I’ve gone over, but there’s a lot of good strips in there, and a lot of interesting news about them.

Tangent also has a webcomic review blog, and he updates nearly daily (M-F?). I may be a little fuzzy on the details, but I’m pretty sure he ended up starting his blog because he felt that Websnark only covered a certain type of dramatic moment, and ignored several strips that Tangent felt deserved recognition. Tangent certainly reads quite a set of comics, and a fairly different one than mine- while we both enjoy some of the same strips, he has a tendency to enjoy more of the long-story based comics, while I enjoy more of the short-story and comedic comics. If you enjoy those sorts of comics, Tangent has quite a list to share, and you’ll probably find something you like there. Tangent’s also ended up getting involved in various webcomic community drama, as he’s a very active forumite in various places, but as I don’t know most of the details of those situations, I’ll leave them as they are.

Hope to be writing again soon.

When I Am King (first strip) (completed, nudity, drugs, sex, violence, vulgarity, animation) is a rather old (for the internet, that is) completed comic and deserves another remembrance. It is a completely wordless (and thus remarkably international) comic about an Egyptian king who wakes up desiring a flower, and has a remarkably bad day. Along the way, the “infinite canvas” of the web comes into play- most strips involve horizontal scrolling, a few involve vertical scrolling, and several actually open the strips into different frames of a single window to show how time flies in different areas. There’s also several animated gifs used for emphasis. When I Am King has 5 chapters, with a total of 63 strips.

The wordlessness of the strip occasionally feels a little weird, but after a few strips it’s remarkably intuitive. The symbols used to indicate what the characters are saying are remarkably clear, and conversation really isn’t a big part of this strip, as most of the strip just follows the current character around without much conversation. It’s also rather interesting to read the strip and realize just how well symbols by themselves communicate. Comic artists who fear that they’re writing more than cartooning should read When I Am King to realize just how much can be communicated without writing at all.

The art is rather simplistic and iconic, which makes the clear communication of the character’s emotions and intentions all the more impressive. When a character’s face consists entirely of an oval, two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth, it’s hard to have the detail to show complex emotions, but it’s there. The simplistic art style never hurts the strip, and the later chapters add complexity to the strip layout that is amazing, creating strips that twist and turn and display real works of art.

When I Am King is remarkably vulgar. I don’t really know how to describe how vulgar it is without giving away spoilers, but let’s just say that it’s really bad. The sex scenes are remarkably open, there’s vomit and bathroom humor… it pretty much hits it all. Do not read this comic if you’re offended by much.

When I Am King actually received much critical acclaim in 2002, when it came out, winning a Web Cartoonist’s Choice Award (for Best Use of the Digital Medium), being covered by Wired magazine, The Comics Journal, and mentioned in many other places. In general they seem to consider it a remarkable underground-style comic. To quote the Comics Journal - Demian5 “treats the underground staples of sex, low humor, and drug experiences with wit and artistic virtuosity.”

When I Am King is an excellent comic if you enjoy underground comics. It’s simplicity, low word count and short episode count means that it’s a very quick read. If you’ve spent this much time reading the review, reading the comic should be easy. Go give it a read.

The Mansion of E (first strip) (daily) is an epic fantasy story of… hmm. Well, it’s epic fantasy. It starts with Sylvester and Mortimer and Rosemary Ripley, three humans in a world of strange and fantastical creatures. Sylvester and Mortimer take care of the Mansion of E, a mansion so full of strangeness that it’d take a lifetime to understand even how to survive in it. Rosemary arrives and prompts a small quest that turns epic. There’s very few jokes, and a lot of reading, but there’s a fantastic world here for people who enjoy that sort of thing. The Mansion of E updates daily and has 1,495 strips in the archive.

You’re probably going to see the word “epic” appear a lot in this review, because that’s really the best way to describe this strip. As the strip goes, more and more characters are introduced, to the point that it’s hard to remember all of them. They’re all distinct visually and generally have their own plots to distinguish them politically, and the author generally has links to their last appearances if it’s been a while for people to remind themselves who’s visible. But there’s thirteen people in the cast page, and that’s a drop in the bucket for how many characters there really are. Most of them know of the others in some way, and they generally have some political feelings regarding them, leading to some rather epic political maneuvering.

Along with the epic, The Mansion of E is also… a bit slow. Strike that. The Mansion of E is glacial. I’ve commented that action strips are generally a bit slow, but Mansion of E trumps them all and isn’t even an action strip. Imagine the busiest day you’ve ever had. Now add a few people interacting with you and having the busiest day they’ve ever had, too. Now chronicle every little conversation and situation you go through throughout the day and post it in webcomic form. This is approximately what The Mansion of E’s pacing feels like. On the plus side, it’s also the most interesting day you’ve ever had, too. There’s a lot happening in this strip. Even if every strip doesn’t advance plot (there’s full weeks of scenery display), the strip never slows to the point that I felt that nothing was happening. I always felt that things were happening, we’d just get back to them in a minute. Or a year or so. But we get back to it eventually.

The fun thing about having an epic strip like this is that the world, the mythology, and the characters can be built up to places that most strips can’t ever get to. When a character makes an offhand comment with a word that we’ve never heard before, it’s clear that there’s a backstory there. And we’ll get to see it, eventually. Things are filled in, backstory is fleshed out, information about history and what’s going on is laid out. And slowly, the world advances.

It’s a fascinating world. I would love for more stories to have these kinds of mansions- filled with toys and devices and buttons and levers that all do interesting things. Mansions with connecting tubes and events and tunnels… with elevators and an ecology all by itself. I love the kind of world that feels like there’s new amazement around every corner, and The Mansion of E provides. As long as you’re patient enough, a rich world will be displayed for you.

The Mansion of E is not for everyone. It’s generally not funny. The art isn’t wonderful (although it grew on me), and there’s not enough drama or action for it to be all the strip has to offer (there’s some of both, admittedly). There’s quite a bit of politics. But mostly what the Mansion of E provides is a rich world to explore. It was rich enough that I spent several hours reading through the archive, waiting to see what happened next.

If you’re interested in a fantastic world with a rich mythology, give Mansion of E a try.

Jack (first strip) (MWF, anthropomorphic, nudity, extreme violence, extreme gore, death, perversion, anything offensive you can think of (including the occasional misspelling)). Every update is a full page, although color or black and white varies. There are 1086 pages in the archive. Updates are generally part of story arcs (there’s 30 currently) that run for a series of pages, anywhere from 10 to 87 pages long. In between arcs there’s short strips and bits of gift art, either for or from other comics.

Jack is the story of life and death. Each arc tells the story of some people, and the struggles their souls go through, generally before their death. Death is almost always involved in some way, and in this story the Grim Reaper is played by Jack, who has earned a place in hell as the Sin of Wrath. The other Deadly Sins play rather large parts as well, and all have their own motives and methods. Generally the story arcs allow us to get to know one or two mortals who may appear later on in various stories (generally in Heaven or Hell or Purgatory), and the recurring characters will play smaller parts in the stories. Every once in a while, however, the story arcs are about the main characters completely, and we get to see part of the pain and toil that doing duty can cause.

I feel inadequate talking about Jack. I don’t know how to describe the suffering he can capture, the beauty of life and death. Some other webcomics make me tear up a little, when the stories are sad, or particularly poignant. Jack is the only comic that I go get tissues for, regularly. I can’t get through the archives without taking breaks, because the story arcs are written so well I feel a need to stop and think about the beauty and art that I’ve just seen.

Because there’s a solid beauty in this comic. That seems a strange thing to say about a comic that’s full of gore and disgustingness, but the art is amazing and communicates exactly the intention- emotion, intensity, action, drama… if this sort of content would ever be allowed on TV, it’s already clear exactly how it would be laid out just by reading the comic. There are stories of survival, of accepting death and doing the right thing, of judgement, of horror… I have claimed that Preacher is the most offensive published comic I’ve ever seen. Jack goes further. And he captures something of the world while he’s there.

The only weakness in Jack’s pacing is in the arcs that contain a lot of action, and the Jack mostly suffers from the same weakness all action comics suffer from- action pages feel really slow when updating on the web. They’re better in the archives. There are times where the large amount of detail in the drawings gets a little distracting during the action scenes, but generally the detail just provides for amazing art. There’s a lot of very sensitive subject matter here. Rape, blackmail, murder, genocide… anything that could be considered a sin is covered somewhere in the comic, as the people who cause and do those sins are examined. I don’t expect this to be a comic to suggest to many people.

But if you can stand offensive material, and you’re interested in stories that make their characters face their mortality and morality, Jack is an amazing comic. Give it a read.

I get to do another multireview post, because Jason Shiga has several completed comics under his belt and available on his site. He has even more that are unfortunately not available online, and I’m not aware of him doing any more art, sadly. What’s there, however, are some of the most interesting stories I’ve read, and stories that I gladly come back to time and again to read. Regardless of the story, the characters feel real, the logic makes sense, and the tension is thick, making reading the next panel a necessity. Fleep and Bus Stop have a lot of monologue in them, but Shiga’s writing is so excellent I wouldn’t dream of calling this too much text.

Bookhunter (completed, violence) (while there’s two formats available, “read book” is probably easier) is a story about a book forgery mystery. But in this world, book theft is of the utmost importance. SWAT teams, federal agents, car chases, action scenes, shoot outs, even librarian ninjas. Seriously, librarian ninjas. It totally works. This is one of the most interesting action comics I’ve ever read. Jason takes this world to the logical extreme-the bookhunters clearly value books over human life, and book thefts are treated with the paranoia and preparation you would expect of a dangerous terrorist.

More than the action, though, the investigation and the mystery itself are extremely well done. The story is set in 1972, so the only equipment available is from that time period. The library records aren’t computerized, and all the equipment feels legitimate (I have no personal experience with library technology in 1972, so I can’t say for sure). Following along as the main characters piece together the mysteries and solving the crimes is a blast, and make me wish for a CSI: Library. Definitely give Bookhunter a look.

Fleep (completed, lots of math) (”read scroll” is probably easier for this one) is the story of a man trapped in a telephone booth, with no memory of how he got where he is, no way to get out, and very little equipment to do much of anything with. This entire story takes place with a single character in a phone booth and yet is one of the most gripping dramas I’ve read. The main character knows a lot of math and physics and uses these abilities to slowly deduce things about his situation. There’s no strange world trick on this one- it’s a person legitimately thinking through the problem presented to him and trying to figure out how to save himself.

Every few years I get the urge to read Fleep again, just because it’s so well done. I like to think of myself as a smart person, but stuck in the same situation as the main character there’s no way I’d think of even a third of what he manages to try. There’s no cheating, either, with calculations behind the scenes and “And then I discovered this”. All the calculations are done completely up front and are logical conclusions. I am amazed every time I read this story how powerful math can be. Give Fleep a read.

Bus Stop (completed) (I prefer “read book” for this one) is a sad story of obsession. The main character believes he can deduce things about the people around him just by watching them at a bus stop. This comic is his journal as he keeps track of these observations and the things he figures out. Partway through some new twists are explained, and the reason why he obsesses about the bus stop is revealed, leading to even more obsession and investigation. I always feel sad reading this strip, because the lost dreams of the main character are so very clear. He has a goal, he understands what he’s losing to pursue this goal, and he has decided it’s worth it. I have to respect that dedication, even if I can’t support his choices.

Bus Stop is at its core a study in what we can learn from people just by surface observation- no interaction, just watching. It’s fascinating the things that can be figured out if you’re dedicated (and creepy) enough to try.

Meanwhile (completed) (violence, gore) is one of very few well done interactive branching comics on the web. Every once in a while a choice must be made, and two branching lines go to the sides of the screen. Clicking on one of these nodes opens up a new page, and a new part of the story to follow. There’s really not much I can say about Meanwhile without spoiling at least parts of it, but there’s a great mystery involved in Meanwhile that the user can solve. Each branch through the story can teach you new tricks and new solutions to apply to the story until the whole world is laid out to view.

Incidentally, I’d suggest the chocolate ice cream. It may not be as satisfying, but it’s more interesting.

Something Happens (first strip) (weekly on wednesdays, gag-a-day, no continuity) is a self-described surreal sketch comic, “as if ‘The Far Side’ were filtered through ‘Monty Python’”. It certainly lives up to its reputation, bouncing around from weird possibility to strange plot setup and having fun while it goes. The strange is taken as a given, and the ludicrous is commonplace. There are 95 strips in the archive.

Something Happens is Thomas Dye’s second strip, the first being Newshounds. Despite Newshounds being more frequently updated and with a much larger archive, I enjoy Something Happens quite a bit more, so that’s going to be the focus of my review. While I’m on the subject, though, Newshounds started as a gag-a-day strip about a newstation of animals, and gradually turned into a dramatic strip about the same. I really enjoy the early work and have not been a big fan of it recently.

On the flipside, I really enjoy Something Happens’ recent work, but thought some of the early pieces were a bit slow. Just a few strips in, though, they’re all solid strips with wild ideas. Each new strip brings another view on reality, and it’s never clear what the rules’ll be when they start. There’s a strip where the main character has wheels for feet, one where the planets are the main characters, a time travelling commercial… each strip is its own self-contained sketch, and generally ones that you could imagine being an improv comedy skit. Each one’s quite good.

The characters in Something Happens have a tendency to be angry a lot, and I think it influences the pacing of the strip- people tend to speak in exclamations and loud rhetoric, so the strip generally reads either very slow or very fast, with not very much middle ground. It doesn’t detract from the humor, it’s just a particular style for the strip that’s a bit unique.

The art for Something Happens is quite reasonable- Thomas had many years with Newshounds to improve his comic style, and it’s quite distinctive now. The characters tend to be very cartoony, with large eyes and mouth, which probably contributes to the feeling that they feel emotional a lot. Characters are also very free with motion and interaction. Characters are distinctive, although given that there’s no continuity or characters carried over, this isn’t really saying a whole lot.

Something Happens is a nice wacky gag-a-day strip that deals with the insane ideas accepted as commonplace. Go give it a try.

Ozy and Millie (first strip) (daily, anthropomorphic, gag-a-day) is a wonderful example of a comic strip version of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. They become friends and play together. Ozy and Millie is a philosophical and often political comic that takes a look at various philosophies taken to extremes through the eyes of children. Usually M-F daily, although with rare breaks that sometimes last as long as a month, there are 2,221 strips in the archive over the last nine years.

Ozymandias, the Ozy of the strip title, is a young wolf who has been taught zen philosophy from an early age, and spends much of his time in quiet contemplation of life around him. His calm acceptance of things around him quickly makes him friends with Millicent, the Millie of the title, a ten year old fox tomboy who never seems to quiet down at all. With Millie’s chaos and Ozy’s calm, the stage is set for most of the strip’s hijinks. Also frequently in the cast are various representations of school stereotypes- a nerd who spends all his time playing roleplaying games and believing that eventually he will make a lot of money with computers, a jock who bullies people because he can, and two characters that are both obsessed with being “cool” (a girl already in the in-crowd and a boy that desperately wants to be). The (single) parents of Ozy and Millie and the various adults at the school round out the cast. All of the characters are extremely distinctive both visually and philosophically.

The anthropomorphic nature of Ozy and Millie doesn’t come up all that often- occasionally it matters that the characters have tails or fur, and the dragons have a culture of attempting to control conspiracies, but otherwise the characters and just normal people. Well, where stereotypes and extremes can be considered normal. Millie’s chaotic and creative semi-insanity, while amusing, can only loosely be considered anything related to normal.

The early Ozy and Millie strips are often much more political than the current strips (and with much worse art, something that improves constantly). In Dec 2006, the author made the decision to separate his political commentary from his main strip, and so started the website I Drew This to host those rants and comics. The strip remains heavy with commentary regarding capitalism and politics in general, but specific complaints have been shifted to his other comic. Ozy and Millie has always had a lot to say about philosophy and politics, and most of the points are interesting to think about. One of the downsides of this is that it often takes a lot of text to set up the jokes, and often the jokes really aren’t all that funny, although they’re amusing. This is also why I’ve marked Ozy and Millie as a newspaper strip even though I don’t think it’s published anywhere- it has a consistent level of humor which is family safe and fairly broad. I would expect a lot of different people to enjoy Ozy and Millie, even if they don’t end up laughing loudly from it.

One of the things that Ozy and Millie does very well is point out the silly things that people treat as commonplace. Sayings that we’ve adopted into our language that don’t mean what they should, customs that have lost their roots, parenting and teaching methods, and everything related to corporate America. The strip manages to capture the spirit of both Ozy and Millie very well- the strip is often random, haphazardly covering different subjects, and then it will calmly sit and talk about something beautiful to ponder.

I’ve enjoyed Ozy and Millie for years, and it’s easily worth a read. Go give it a try.

Sorry about the delay in new posts for a few days there- we had a bit of a DNS issue and I couldn’t get to the site to update, and then I had to deal with some medical problems. We should be moving to real hosting in a week or two, and in the meantime if we’re down we should be back up in at most a few hours (although if DNS gives us trouble again, you’d have to get to a different computer for that, otherwise it’ll take up to a day to clear the cache).

I still don’t have a set schedule for posting. I try to post at the very slowest once every other day. Yes, if I was a webcomic I’d have to mark myself down for being irregular (No, I won’t do reviews in webcomic form). But I’d get major down points for being way too wordy, too.

More posts coming soon.

Flipside (first page) (really first page) (MWF, nudity, violence, some gore, some cursing, adult situations) is a fantasy comic covering the story of two women- Maytag, a sexually adventurous jester with split personalities, and Bernadette, an expert swordswoman who distrusts magic. The world has quite a bit of sorcery, and a good mix of politics and plot. Each update is a full page, and there’s (very roughly) 900 pages in the archive.

First off, explaining that “really first page” link above- Flipside is broken up into books and chapters. Book 0, what was originally on the site, told a complete story, and the author decided to start again (although carrying the characters and the world forward). This time, in Book 1, the focus would be on having the book eventually be publishable- the art’s more polished, the writing’s clearer, and the story has better pacing. The author set Book 0 into a separate section of the archives, intending for none of it to be necessary to enjoy Book 1. You can start on Book 1 and be just fine, although being obsessive about completeness I can’t imagine not reading Book 0 as well.

Maytag, the main character, is open with discussing (and practicing) sexuality and sex, and is extremely competent, confident, and controlled. That is, while she’s got her Jester cap on. With it off, she’s shy, meek, and quiet. The flip between personalities provide some interesting moments, because they’re both distinctly Maytag, and she remembers and accepts both of them. She just doesn’t have the inhibitions she normally would. Bernadette, on the other hand, is a very defensive, honor-bound person who feels very deliberate in her actions and decisions. She has a code of honor and follows it. This code of honor occasionally conflicts with Maytag’s aggressiveness, and both often conflict with the other people they interact with. These two women provide the main characters of a very rich and varied world.

Flipside was one of the first webcomics I got interested in. I was fascinated by different ethical codes at the time, and Flipside fits right into that. More than just being different styles of characters and having different goals, the characters in Flipside have extremely different ethics, beliefs, and worldviews. With powerful sorcery involved, any police force is going to have to be able to handle such threats, and with the low number of sorcerers available for such duty, often powerful threats will escape justice to wreak havoc, keeping police forces busy enough that conflicting honor codes often need to deal with their own justice.

Originally when reading the comic I was concerned that sorcery was too frequently the reason or solution (or both) of the current problem, often without discussion of the powers beforehand. Since that concern, however, there have been a variety of Intermission scripts and notation at the bottom of Book 0 pages to explain the system used for magic and magic items. Once a solid inventory was provided for Maytag’s bag of tricks, my concern over their use disappeared. And not all plots involve sorcery, although most of them have elements of it.

Flipside’s not a comic for humor. The occasional nudity is clearly sexual, although never excessively so or glorified in, and are generally specific plot points. Sexual description and topics are open categories, however. Some of the first pages in Book 0 have a stilted feel, as if the characters and dialogue weren’t very natural yet, something that improved quite rapidly. Sometimes the story feels slow, but that’s largely because I want to see the next page and I have to wait a few days for it. Reading through the archives the pacing feels just right (and you can click on pages to advance! Yay!). Occasionally (mostly in Book 0 or early in Book 1) the anatomy of the characters is a bit off, particularly arm segments. It’s since gotten a lot rarer of a problem, and the art for current Flipside pages is beautiful.

If you don’t mind adult situations, Flipside’s a great comic. You should give it a try.

Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic (first strip) (daily, nudity, violence) is, indeed, a fantasy gamer comic. The characters draw from the various fantasy ideas- various races of elves (generally drow), minotaurs, goblins, beholders, illithids, orcs, elves, ghosts, dwarves, harpies, humans… and they’re all magnificently drawn and portrayed. The story tends to follow the “evil” characters for the most part, and shows how they have a complex philosophy despite being “bad”. YAFGC updates daily and apparently has a huge comic buffer. There’s currently 464 strips in the archive.

I don’t usually discuss the art this early in the review, but for YAFGC it’s one of the main selling points. The art is amazing. The characters are beautiful to look at, have real expressions and body language, and character movements, even combat, seem real, clear, and uncluttered. This is despite the art only being a pencil sketch. I often wonder just how amazing this strip would be if inked and colored, and every hundred strips just that happens. Due to the strip being a pencil sketch, occasionally things like the circles drawn to shape character heads are visible, but they don’t detract from the strip.

There is frequent nudity, although generally all that is shown in the strip are boobs, and it is generally a fairly friendly nudity- even when characters are ogling others, there’s a sense of “Hee. Isn’t this fun?” that makes it feel innocent even when it isn’t. The violence is generally also pretty clean, with a minimum of gore.

The plot and story are also quite good, as all the characters are interesting in their way. The strip tends to vary as to who it’s following as a main character - Gren and Bob, despite being the iconic characters of the strip, often take a side seat to Arachne or any of the other denizens of the cave system they call home. None of the characters are annoying to read about, even the ones that are annoying to the other characters. Every character has their strong points, even if they’re not the ones you (or they) would expect from them, and between them all they keep the story moving at a good pace. And the stories are interesting, too. With this many evil characters running around, there’s plenty of entertaining scheming and backstabbing and plots, all while being entertaining.

I debated for a long time over whether to mark YAFGC as a gag-a-day comic or not. It has the pacing like a gag-a-day, but most of the final panels aren’t jokes. I did laugh a few times in the archive, but it was a rare thing. The comic is quite entertaining, though, and is very easily worth a read. I eventually decided not to mark it as such, because even if it has the pacing of one, it doesn’t really feel like a gag-a-day strip, and it doesn’t really need to be one to be good.

The site design annoys me a little- the comics are “below the fold”- meaning the user has to scroll down to see them. And the “Next strip” link is below the news post, which stays in the archive, so when the news post includes a graphic (there’s a Christmas card at one point), you have to scroll down even further to get to the next comic.

Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic often becomes a fast favorite of people reading it, and I’d suggest you give it a try.