Recently, Homestar Runner did a great cartoon about webcomics. Strong Bad, or rather the Brothers Chaps, leveled some criticisms against popular webcomic types, like the gamer and fantasy subgenres. (“They’re all about video games, gamernerds, webgeeks, dorknerds, gamewads, nerdgames, webwebs, and elves.”)
However, some of the most pointed zingers were directed at the infamous ugly kid brother of webcomics, the sprite comic. I’ll let Strong Bad explain: “If you can’t draw, never fear, just steal some graphics from your favorite video game. And add yet another unlicensed pixel comic to the overcrowded, overstunk landfill of web comics.” Strong Bad’s quip of how you can “MS Paint your way to a non-punchline” wouldn’t be so funny if webcomics like Nintendo Acres weren’t doing it constantly. Even the Wikipedia entry on sprite comics reads like an extended derogatory insult on how terrible sprite comics are… and the entry was probably written by geeks pretty low on the heirarchy already, so there you go.
But do sprite comics have to stand for terrible, lazy artwork? Taken on its own merits, there is nothing wrong with pixel-style art. The blocky figures kindle a sense of nostalgia for the innocent days of Intel 486′s and Super Nintendo. And frankly, they’re just so simple that they’re downright cute. Once upopn a time, Trey Stone and Matt Parker turned kindergarten-style colored paper cutouts into the top rated show on Comedy Central. Why can’t sprites, similarly, escape the webcomic ghetto? Diesel Sweeties, for example, introduces a unique design aesthetic to the funny pages … though it helps that R. Stevens built his webcomic around original characters.
And then there’s the one that features characters from Final Fantasy I.
You know the one I’m talking about.
Bob and George may have been the first popular sprite comic, but any discussion of the pixel form begins and ends with Brian Clevinger’s popular fantasy comedy about four video characters wandering around the world doing magic and stuff, 8-Bit Theater.
