Comments on: The Webcomic Overlook #20: Shortpacked!

By: leyviur

leyviur — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:45:52 +0000

Lately he’s been starting a pregnancy storyline. I’d prayed for years for the comic to return to its former hilarity but Willis continues putting out tripe. What’s worse is, his fans lap it up like it’s super awesome, and the rest of us are just sitting there going “WTF? Did he seriously just do that?”

By: Eno

Eno — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:51:14 +0000

Mike and Amber relationship. That is all.

By: El Santo

El Santo — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:32:43 +0000

While I check in on the site to get Willis’ views on the latest Transformer releases, I haven’t followed Shortpacked! lately since I hear the “drama” has reached intolerable levels these days.

By: leyviur

leyviur — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:34:29 +0000

And it looks like Willis has gone down to CAD levels recently. Ugh.

By: algeya

algeya — Sat, 14 May 2011 02:21:05 +0000

it seems that all his creative energy goes to his new comic dumbing of age(when are we going to get the review of that one?)
,
but at the same time he is doing other 3 (joyce and walky , the mini toystore strips and the transformers one) and of course is going to affect his work

By: The Webcomic Overlook #129: Comic Critics « The Webcomic Overlook

The Webcomic Overlook #129: Comic Critics « The Webcomic Overlook — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:06:19 +0000

[...] bad omen. Replace “comics” with “toys,” and you get Shortpacked! (reviewed here), a comic that did fine on the geeky pop culture bits but completely dropped the ball on creating [...]

By: El Santo

El Santo — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:18:23 +0000

That’s actually a pretty fair assessment. To be honest, since I’ve reviewed Shortpacked!, I haven’t been too thrilled with how far Willis has taken it down the drama route, mainly because it’s s ham-fisted, in the “I’ll do everything opposite of reader expectations because that’s the kind of guy I am.” Pulling a twist the first time can be a shock, but now that it’s sorta become everything that Shortpacked! is about, it’s sort of made all of his characters rather unpleasant. I’d be docking the comic one or two stars if I had to review it again today.

By: Grey

Grey — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:59:39 +0000

Finally got around to reading Shortpacked! and I guess I’m just not much of a fan. I did enjoy some of it though. There is one theory of mine that the comic brings up.
I like to categorize webcomics most times by where they fall between two specifics types relating to how much drama and/or story they have.
On the one hand there’s the joke-a-day, funny paper style webcomics. These are comics with no story, no drama, and no continuity; Just a joke for every strip. Even if they have a steady cast of characters to appear throughout the whole thing they’re all very static.
On the other side there’s the story comic. These are the opposite; it has dynamic characters, plot, emotion, and drama. The strips may have humor in them but only along with other emotions. The characters have depth; they can learn things and change over time. A single strip or page of this comic can hardly survive on its own.
I could be clever and call these two sides “comedy and tragedy” but that would be misleading to some extent. Very few comics actually fall on either side but instead rest somewhere in the middle. What bothers me is when comic creators fail in finding where along that line their comic fits and sometimes even change it to something it isn’t. Shortpacke’s parody of this with the drama tag (as much as it can be a parody because it has gone on too far) is something I liked. Too many cartoonists will come up with a cast of characters, likable or not, and proceed to make their comic closer to the comedy style comics. Eventually they make the horrible mistake of pulling the “drama tag” and bringing these static, happy-go-lucky characters into a bitter, more real world. This is reason #1 why Ctrl+Alt+Del failed; this is where so many lesser comics fail. Sometimes it works out for the better, but so many times the characters and setting are just not meant to be taken seriously.
It seems in Shorpacked! there’s no way the comic can go back. It is very true that once the “tag” is pulled you can’t put it back in. Fortunately the comic never strayed too far into the drama, there’s still enough gag humor in it that you can still imagine the drama being in parody, but you can only move one way on the line. You never see a comic going from a serious plot to joke-a-day strips, you may get some “out of continuity” fillers and whatnot, but you can never move it closer to the comedy.
So all webcomic creators be warned. Know your comic’s place and don’t stray too far from where it works. I don’t care if you’ve fallen in love with your characters, I don’t care if you want them to feel real pain, and I don’t care that adding drama brings more viewers. If you didn’t set out to make that kind of comic from the start then don’t go there.
I’m also not a fan of It’s Walky, though I give Willis props for how far he’s come since making that comic.

By: Pike

Pike — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:25:17 +0000

Although I enjoy Shortpacked!, where Willis really shined was with his multi-year opus “It’s Walky!”– you can possibly even go back to “Roomies” if you want to, though the Walky storyline doesn’t begin for a while after.

Although it’s since morphed into the much more lightheaded (but still enjoyable) “Joyce and Walky”, the original storyline was just incredible. I sat down to read it one Friday and spent the entire weekend just eating up the archives. I laughed, I cried, I declared it the best webcomic of all time. It might still hold that distinction. Well worth a look if you haven’t yet read it.

(Massive post necro, I apologize. I just recently found your blog and quite enjoy it so far.)

By: The Webcomic Overlook #97: HijiNKS Ensue « The Webcomic Overlook

The Webcomic Overlook #97: HijiNKS Ensue « The Webcomic Overlook — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:54:34 +0000

[...] game webcomic). It’s the same subject matter covered by Penny Arcade, Shortpacked! (reviewed here), and Let’s Be Friends Again (reviewed here). Each establishes their own stake in the [...]