Nukees
Sometimes I write reviews, and sometimes the reviews grab me and make me write them.
So today I’m writing a review for Nukees, the Atomic Comic Strip.
Nukees (main site) (first strip) is a strip that follows Gav, King Luca, Suzy, Danny and others along the nuclear engineering section of UC Berkeley. The strip is consistently MWF (since 2000) and archives since 1997. That’s approximately ~1300 comic strips. There’s a week or two in the archives for sketches and colorings and filler, but it’s quite rare. Nukees is a gag-a-day (with a few exceptions) strip with a heavy plot and occasional drama. There are puns (not the main humor, but clearly enjoyed) and occasional violence, but very little gore.
Nukees is another strip that requires a good chunk of knowledge to get all the references within, but unlike the last few strips, Nukees focuses more on situational humor and leaves the physics for set-ups. On the flip side, since the author’s a postdoc in physics, the physics that is present is pretty heavy (bose-einstein condensate, thermodynamics, quantum tunneling, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle… the list goes on). I don’t think they’re generally required to enjoy the strip, but it helps. There are occasionally cultural references- there’s some Bush jokes, and some jokes about various weather patterns and some Berkeley politics, all of which seem outdated now, but they’re not too hard to guess what they referred to and they’re not all that often.
I’ve made comments before that some others do very well in separating their character’s “voices”, and I’ve complimented the various methods that cartoonists have done so. Nukees manages to separate the characters very well through very clear means- each character has their own neurosis. Gav is addicted to evil, and strives to cause chaos wherever he goes. Gav tends to be the main focus of the strip, largely because he’s so amusing and so _actively_ manipulative and greedy. “King” Luca believes that he’s a King (after all he owns and grants land, and has people following him, he fits all the criteria), and acts as chivalry demands in all respects. In a college, where people need rescuing from impossible homework and such, Luca gets quite the following. Danny is obsessive compulsive, and requires that everything fits in its proper order, to the point that he corrects people’s grammar and does not use contractions. He does not seem to mind too much when people abuse this love of fixing things for uses such as building giant robots, and he’s smart enough that he often outwits people attempting to abuse his OCD by having plans that depend on them doing so.
All the other characters in the strip have their own caricatures, and each of them seem very well thought-out. The plot of the strip involves the various capers they all get into, generally opposed to each other. Relationships start and break up, the bitter exes start drama only to get drawn into somebody on the run from a giant robot leg… The characters all stay together as if they’re friends, despite the fact that in general they’re mostly just sticking with the familiar. There’s a lot of loneliness in this strip, but they hide it well (and in some cases, drown it in alcohol). But the need for each other, just to have _somebody_, keeps these characters together even when they’re feuding, and that makes for good drama.
And on the subject of drama, there’s a good chunk of action as well. The giant robot ant is a recurring theme in this strip, and there’s giant squid, giant robot legs, artificial intelligences, nuclear meltdowns, bar brawls… lots of good clean fun. It’s primarily a science fiction strip and enjoys itself thoroughly being there. The plot’s been advancing through the whole archive, and time advances as well. Although there’s often not much indicating the passage of time, characters do advance- new characters join the college, some characters graduate (although the only graduation has happened recently, so the character’s still around). Characters experience life-changing events that actually change their life and are applied to their attitudes (although generally not their insanity) in later plots.
Nukees did not make me laugh much while reading through the archives, although I did enjoy the humor and I was entertained enough to read the whole archives through before posting this (generally I only just skim through a few select areas for people with archives past 1000), and considering I was supposed to sleep an hour ago, that’s saying something.
I wouldn’t be complete talking about Nukees without making a few references. The author, Darren Bleuel, is one of the more influential people in webcomicdom, although you often don’t hear of him as much as some of the… more dramatic personalities. He tends to go by Gav (yes, the same as the character, although he looks different (he has blue hair, for starters)), admittedly, so the nickname/name thing might throw things off. Biggest thing he did, likely, was co-CEO Keenspot, which for a long time was the huge monster webcomic label (and still is _a_ huge monster webcomic label). He’s still there, too. Gav as character and Gav as cartoonist have been cameo’d many times in various strips, to the point where he has a Gavspotting page on his site to track them. Most comic artists on Keenspot or Keenspace know and recognize Gav, as he was the recognizable face for Keenspot for quite some time (Chris tends to do a lot of the announcements, but Gav had bright blue hair, it’s hard to be more recognizable than that).
Nukees is a fun strip. I enjoy it quite a bit. You should give it a try.
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