Something Happens
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.
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