This post doesn’t really cover any new ground.
I’ve spent the day catching up on comics from the last few days, and being pleasantly surprised by a number of things:
1) Something*Positive is running a halloween story on “Operation: Terror for Jesus!” Apparently Christian “Hell Houses” are very, very real.
I’ll be honest – this storyline is probably going to make me laugh. A lot.
2) Loserz is back! I can’t blame the guy for taking a break, given the others things keeping him busy, but it went on hiatus at quite the cliff-hanger, and I’ve been rather eagerly waiting it’s return.
3) I found the new website for My Nemesis! I continue to like this comic a lot, even if I can never tell if it is taking itself too seriously or consciously riffing on itself.
4) The recent run of Rob and Eliot guest strips has been phenomenal.
5) I’ve been liking Questionable Content more lately than I have in… well, probably ever. The comic was pretty much teetering on the same love-triangle/unresolved-tension for the longest time, and resolving that (at least for now) has allowed Jeph to start moving the comic through some pretty damn good new storylines.
I actually thought he’d have trouble keeping me on after the sheer awesome insanity of a few weeks back, but no, I keep going back for more.
Once again round the bend
Over at PvP, Kurtz has been working on a story about Jade. (He’ll also be a guest of honor at next year’s San Diego Comicon – good deal, no? Back to the story, though.)
His stated goal with the current storyline is that he wants to “move Jade from a reactionary role into more of a protagonist.” So the arc is about developing Jade as a character, and more than that, about changing the very way she interacts with the rest of the strip.
It’s a neat idea, and it is always good to see strips that are already solid, already established, and have no need for change… to still go ahead and try to change anyway. To keep evolving, not out of need, but out of a desire for self-improvement. So that’s good, and Jade is definitely a good character to do it with.
But that isn’t what has really caught my attention in the most recent strips. It’s the new character – Samantha. She was brought into the strip pretty much for the sole reason of letting this storyline come about, and helping to further Jade’s characters (in ways we have not yet entirely seen)… but Kurtz managed, in the process, to add another interesting figure to the cast.
She easily seems to fit in with the crew, to play along and improvise with all the normal wacky interactions. I don’t know if we’ll see much of her when the storyline is over – she’ll probably pop in and out much like Gwen and some others, becoming supporting cast, not a regular.
But still – she was brought into the strip as a plot device. Period. Scenery, catalyst, nothing more. And yet, instead, she already actually is a character, one distinct – in several ways – from the rest of the cast and crew.
One of the biggest criticisms against PvP, back in the day, was that it was too formulaic. It was designed to be marketable, to be easy to produce, not to tell a story. Now, putting aside whether or not that was true – or even whether or not it mattered – I think you’d have trouble saying the same today.
Andie Again
I’ve been following Flint Again for a while now, and it hasn’t failed to disappoint. As usual, Troutman is a good storyteller, and even though we’re delving into the backstory of characters from his previous works, it manages to be pretty new and exciting at every turn.
But what recently has really been getting my notice isn’t the character development and the ability to see some of the defining character moments and first meetings among the crew – it’s the art.
Now, John Troutman has had more than a few webcomics. Many of them have been successors or side-strips or prequels or sequels or all manner of interconnected works – but they have each been pretty distinctly different. His art style is constantly changing – in some cases simple improvement, in some cases simply trying out different styles and techniques.
His latest style is much more intensely detailed then his previous works. It’s a good style, and works well with moving from pure comedy to a more story driven setting.
The only thing I had found slightly disconcerting was the way he drew the faces – adding in some prominent cheekbones on many of the characters was mildly disorienting. But my uncertainty about the new style was blown out of the water when I saw the latest update – which features our first scene with Andie.
Now, Andie was never really my favorite character in the strip. I mean, I liked her, but she just never pulled me in as well as some of the others.
I think, though, that has now officially changed.
The image on the left is the one that Troutman has been using to represent the latest update – on the Keenspot newsbox, on his own update page. Its a good image, and its definitely cute.
But it’s the image on the right that won me over.
Troutman was able to capture an incredible depth of expression with this new style. I’m not even going to get into the new look for Andie – other than to say that it works, and works well – but just with the face alone, he seems to have caught a moment of real honesty. Real feeling.
That’s hard. That’s a challenge no matter what style you’re using.
I am confident that this is by no means the final stage of his artform. We will see it continue to evolve throughout this work alone, let alone any projects that follow. And that’s good – that’s a good thing.
But right here, right now, he got it right.
Andie was a prominent character throughout almost all of his previous works. She even had her own entire spin-off. She had, arguably, a more complex background than many of the other characters. Througout all of that, though, I never really got her. Never felt any great attachment.
4 pages. It took him all of 4 pages to change that.
Now that’s skill.
Shouldn’t the sound effect be something like "Released!"? Or "Ka-Released!"? Isn’t that all the rage these days?
Confession:
I have never ever ever ever liked Chef Brian. Random gibberish is not humor. A moment of chaos can be surreal and exciting – a full page of inserting whatever words and images come to mind is pointless.
Twisp and Catsby, while surreal, has a distinct method to their madness, and that is what lets it work. Yes, it started out as a random gag, but Penny Arcade can pull it off well, because they treat it as carefully as the rest of the strip.
Chef Brian is pure inanity and nothing more, and that doesn’t just not work for me – it actively rubs me the wrong way.
Which is why I have to give credit where it is due – last Friday’s Ctrl+Alt+Del actually had a moment where I appreciated Chef Brian. That panel, off to the side?
Left me in stitches.
It actually has meaning. It isn’t just a throwaway of garbled words – it is zany and surreal, but you can still fit it into context.
Now, the rest of the strip unfortunately reverted to form. But I’m a forgiving sort, so I’ll overlook it this once, and give props to Mr. Buckley on a job well done.
That special time of year…
It’s Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th of October, even. Should that be scary? Should I be scared?
Man, I just don’t know. The worst thing that has happened to me today is drinking Mountain Dew for the first time in two years. Is that scary? Bad, sure, but I wouldn’t say it’s left me shaking in my boots. (Well, poor choice of words – the caffeine has had its inevitable effects upon my system. Bah! Moving on now…)
It strikes me that horror seems to be a genre pretty absent in webcomics. It may be that the medium doesn’t work well for it – it is much harder to shock and scare the reader moving one panel at a time.
Now, I’m not saying I’m really looking for horror comics, as it isn’t really my favorite genre. I’m just a little surprised by the general lack of it on the web.
A quick review of possible contenders on my comics list doesn’t turn up much hope:
Scary Go Round: Delightfully quirky and with plenty of gothic elements, but not really frightening.
The Devil’s Panties: I wouldn’t say the comic’s all that fearsome, but yeah, I’ll admit that Jennie herself is kinda scary (in a good way.)
Hellbound: Zany, sure. Diabolic, technically. Not actually scary, though.
Jack: The best on the list thus far – but Jack is, in many ways, more philosophical than terrifying.
Megatokyo: Piro genuinely feels that having all his main characters strip down to their underwear is a genuine extension of the story, not fanservice. Including, potentially, an entire classroom of underage kids. Hmm… yeah, that is kinda scary.
No Rest for the Wicked: It definitely has elements of “the Brothers Grimm” creepiness to it, but it is generally a little diluted by the other fantasy elements. Moments of darkness, but not necessarily horror.
Suburban Tribe: This gets a spot on the list for having quality, non-continuity halloween arcs every October, much as I fondly recall the Simpsons doing. Rock on!
Toasted Pixel: Ok, I’ll admit that the news articles about phenomena found on the internet almost invariable leave me horrified.
Oh damn. I was about to give up hope – no real qualifiers in the list above. I’m ashamed to admit I almost forgot about The Stiff. The story is definitely up there for creepy. I mean, weird things are happening to the main character. It’s easy to focus on all the random school drama and highschool love crap happening – but at heart, this seems to be something of a zombie story, and I have a feeling it won’t stay hidden forever.
The art also really works for leaving one… disturbed.
Unfortunately it has also been on hiatus for a bit – but Jason Thompson (the disturbed mind behind its creation) hopes to be back and happening in November.
So I’ll keep my fingers crossed on that, and in the meantime, give out the First Friday the 13th Webcomic Horror Award!
(Can he do that, they ask? Ha! I just did!)
(And before you ask, no, the award doesn’t come with any special prizes. Just, you know… recognition on a horror well done. And really, in these days of half-assed efforts and disappointments, can one ask for any more than that?)
(On second thought, don’t answer that question.)
From Humble Beginnings
So I noticed that SMBC has recently trimmed the archive down to only include the most recent 120 comics, presumably to avoid having his earlier, less refined work evaluated by potential publishers.
I imagine that dealing with the change in one’s quality is a debate for many, many artists out there. Some ignore it, some fix up the most obvious offenses and leave the rest, some fully redo their strips one by one, and some restart their comic entirely.
Simply… removing the offending comic isn’t done quite as often, though I have seen some artists occasionally treat the older work as a seperate strip, and having it available but disconnected from their current projects.
But I guess the advantage of a gag strip is that one can cut out the past without disrupting continuity.
Is it worth it? I mentioned the other day that my first impression of xkcd was a bit weakened by his early work in the archives, so I can certainly see the benefit of ‘pulling a Lucas’, one way or another. But even with that, you might be losing good stuff along with the old – and how exactly do you draw the final line?
Change and Stasis
Not much to report today:
–Abstract Gender has a new artist. It’s fourth one, in fact. While normally that heavy turnover is a sign that a strip may be giving up the ghost, in this case it seems to bode nothing but success – dozens of artists tried out for the new position, and the strip seems to have a pretty heavy readership for something that has been around for under a year and a half.
–Mac Hall is setting aside what it has been up until now, and will be returning in a new form in October. This seems to be a change that has been coming for quite a while, and I am certainly interested to see what new shape they have in mind.
–Sam and Fuzzy is brilliantly evil, and likes cliffhangers. I hates him so.
–Scary Go Round is brilliantly evil, and likes cliffhangers. I HATES HIM SO!
That Singular Burden
Some time ago, Tailsteak put forth this comic, wherein a lizard of a distinctly aggressive demeanor accused him of no longer being an online cartoonist, due to slow updates on his site.
Now, it is admittedly true that it is all too easy for works of accomplishment on the web to be quickly forgotten. So while I will disagree with the cross little lizard’s sentiment at heart, I do concede that there is some grounding in truth to it.
For example, though once I checked Tailsteak’s site on a daily basis, it was over a week before I noticed the magnificence of his latest offering.
With this work, one of his finest to date, I believe he has left his mark, come what may.
Second Verse, Same as the First
Even when other members of the Modern Tales collective were running low on strips, Graphic Smash still had the quality and quantity to keep me reading nonstop.
Despite this, they’ve gone ahead and, like their brethren, added a nice little collection of new comics.
Which means they now officially have a metric fuckton of strips updating every day.
I mean, I’m counting ten strips updating today, along with an announcement of another five strips joining the roster. Almost all of which looking damn awesome. So that’s impressive – but not actually what I wanted to talk about.
One of the strips is Johnny Saturn, which was previously part of Graphic Smash. Which, previously, left and joined Komikwerks, and began rereleasing the strips thus far there. And, of course, the next arc in its epic saga has it rejoining the fold with Graphic Smash – and re-rereleasing its strips again, from the start.
Quite a few strips have done this, of late, as they’ve been joining these conglomerates. Usually they release their stored strips at an exceedingly souped-up pace, thus both impressing new readers with a substantial stock of story, while also giving themselves time to build up a larger buffer. Occasionally the strips have been touched up with spiffier colors and cleaner lines.
Now, I am not going to say that this is a bad practice. It can, in some ways, be wearing on your current audience, who is eager – even desperate – for new advancement. (Does a hiatus by any other name smell as sweet?) But it provides a sense of continuation even with the temporary break, and certainly works well to bring in new readership.
I know that while it may be jarring to have strips I am currently reading take this tactic, I’ve been delighted to find it in new strips. In the case of Girl Genius I willingly deprive myself of the newer material, gleefully proceeding at a calm, leisurely pace through the older works. I’m not sure why I haven’t bought the rest of the trades to catch myself up, or borrowed them from friends that I know for a fact have them – but in this case, I enjoy the anticipation of more to come, and the ability to engage in mass consumption of the works on the day the backlog catches up to the more recent comics.
I’ve wandered a bit off-topic. My apologies. I additionally appear to have avoided arriving at a point at all, aside from to say that rereleasing content could be good or bad, I guess, depending on the state of the reader at the time of the transition. You know, maybe.
In the end, I’m a fan of almost anything other than sheer hiatus. I like the artist going that extra length to say “Hey, I didn’t forget about you.” If whatever filler is provided is not to my liking, then I shrug and treat it like a normal hiatus, and come back when it starts back up. (Yes, even with shirt guy Dom. In time, I can forgive even that.)
And if the filler is to my liking – if the rereleased content has, indeed, been remastered artfully – then I guess I win. What do I win? Well, some additional hours of entertainment from a resource that has already provided amusement.
I know that replay value is a valuable thing in many games, and I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the same holds true elsewhere.
‘Ting’
I know that I reviewed Errant Story the other week.
(My mind is not quite so far gone as to have forgotten this fact in the intervening period.)
Despite this, I felt the need to stop and take note of today’s strip – not much to say about it, other than the fact that it is seriously awesome.
While I am no great expert in the field of art, and may not be able to precisely pinpoint everything about the image that makes it resonate so well with me – it does, nonetheless, and does so strongly.
And that, if nothing else, is the mark of a good artist.
Damn Good Comics 