Happy 2008, and welcome back to the Webcomic Overlook! If you are looking for a site that reviews online comics, this is one of them.

Recently, I came across a a blog for video gamers lamenting on the dearth of in depth video game reviews. The writer began thinking about the silent film era, and that even in those early days film goers co get a hold of little newsletters publishing film recommendations. The writer of that particular blog post was highly enamored that he might be a reviewer in video gaming’s “silent movie” age.

Now, I don’t know if I’m a reviewer in “silent movie” age of webcomics. I wasn’t there during the heyday of Charlie Chaplin, obviously, so I can’t make a fair comparison. However, I’d like to say that we’re in the “Doom” age of webcomics. Remember Doom? That game where you picked up big guns to messily destroy demons on Mars. I was there when it was first released. (If anyone tells me to “Go to bed, old man!” I will rap them on the head with my old man cane.) The popular 3D shooter truly turned the world upside down. The energetic and confusing era to follow which saw countless, indistinguishable imitators (Heretic? Hexen? Rise of the Triad?) Across the ocean, the Japanese meshed the style with anime/manga visuals (Final Fantasy VII). And while a few developers tried for something off the beaten path, they weren’t really that different … since most developers knew that they were all reaching out to the same adolescent-to-young-adult market.

Does this sound a little like where webcomics are now? Or do I have to remind you how, despite the diverse tastes and experiences that we can see displayed by individuals in the human race, a solid majority of webcomics are still about video games?

There will be some entrants, too, trying to hold on to the glorious past. In video games, it was Donkey Kong Country, reminding players of the glories of 2D platformers. In the case of webcomics, there are some that harken to traditional print comics. Nothing I’ve read so far has felt more unironically old school than today’s Webcomic Overlook subject, Sugary Serials.

Oh Mandle… you came and you gave without taking….

If you guessed that this might be an inappropriate segue into a flashback, then you’d be right. Back in the day, before I discovered women, I used to frequent the comic book shops quite a lot. Ah, to hear the drone of the comic book owner as he railed endlessly against the duopoly of Marvel and DC while smelly patrons sifted silently through boxes of polybagged back issues. Good times. At the comic rack, I would usually select a stack of the regulars: pretty much all X-Men books and X-titles, Daredevil, Young Justice/Teen Titans, and perhaps an old issue of Impulse.

Once in a while, I’d feel like expanding my horizons, but not making too much of a commitment. The shelves had those too: comic anthologies. Each comic book would contain about 3 different stories from different creators and artists. The usually came from independent publishers with names like Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, or America’s Best Comics. Most of the time, the stories felt rushed, and in many cases, they were. Creators like to dream big, and cramming ideas in the span of 8 to 10 pages is sometimes too much for them to handle. It’s as if they’re saying, “We’re only giving you a taste of something that’s much, much cooler! Just, uh, give us two to three years to do the big story. If we ever start that, even.”

Sometimes, though, the short story format is all you need. I once picked up a black-and-white little gem that included a haunting Neil Gaiman story. It still haunts me to this day. It was about a nerdy man who accidentally has everyone in the world killed because it came at a substantial discount.

Sugary Serials runs on that very same format. Each arc is separated into 24-page issues, and each issue contains three separate stories. The project seems to have just started. As of this writing, Sugary Serials is on issue #4. A new short serial, Matt Putnam-Pouilot’s “Daring Dodo”, just started. It’s only the fourth serial thus far. A glance through the roster of serials, though, shows a fairly long line-up of diverse projects slated for future issues. The same slate, though, kinda give you an idea that most of the titles will be incredibly similar.

The catch here is that the stories are composed of kid-friendly titles. That means no naughty words, gratuitous violence, or hanky panky. BIFF POW action sequences — the sort that you’d find in comics bearing the Comics Code Authority seal — are still fair game. I’m actually a big fan of all-ages books and diversifying the webcomic-reading audience in general. Both Bone and Uncle Scrooge comics grace my book shelves next to darker fare like The Ultimates and The Dark Knight Returns. Hence, I applaud the Sugary Serials team and their noble goals.

Lucky kids. When I was that age all I could dream about was hanging with Baloo and Kit Cloudkicker.

Thus far, Sugary Serials has featured three stories. I didn’t read these in issue format as the creators intended, though. Instead, I went to each series in the archive and read the from start to finish. Ultimately, it felt less disorienting. Anthology formats may work on the comic book shelves, but there you have to wait a month between issues. Internet is all about instant gratification, baby.

Dreamforce Defenders, by Chet Lucero, is a mix of Monsters Inc. and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and quite possibly some other series that involve friendly creatures from a kid’s imagination. In this series, the heroes are characters that are rescued from the end of a child’s dream. The story leaves it vague as to whether the dream ends because it is a childhood fantasy that disappears when a child grows to old, or whether the dream ends simply because it’s morning. Anyway, the Dreamforce Defenders team journeys through the dreamscape to protect children from frightening nightmares. This was easily the most intriguing concept out of the first three. The characters, though, are very one dimensional, and the adventure feels fairly run-of-the-mill. Tell me if you’ve seen this set-up before: character gets rescued from collapsing world, is introduced to a team and a new world view, fights evil on a trial run, and then decides to join the team.

Since this is the dreamworld, I felt that the art should be more whimsical and less flat and gloomy. Everything seems to be tinted blue, and that may very well have been the intent. However, I felt it conveyed “coldness” and “frigidity” better than it conveyed a dream state.

Another story is Curse of the Pharaohs by Mark Rudolph. The artwork here strives for a retro look. While Rudolph struggles a bit with perspective and anatomy, I admit that the pulpy style matches the story. Here, a traveling Egyptian exhibit arrives at a small town with nefarious purposes in mind. A small boy stumbles on the evil scheme and somehow turns into into a guy that looks like Kamen Rider. There’s some monster fights here and there, evil loses, and good triumphs to fight another day. The serial is awash in earthy hues as if to recall earlier comics, like Dial H for Hero. Kids who turn into big, strapping alien guys are all the rage these days — I know one kid who will run his mouth tired over Ben 10 — so Rudolph may be on to something here. Still, by this point I’m starting to feel a little disappointed that this is the second story that I felt didn’t really introduce any new concepts and instead went for a tired old adventure that had already been seen on any number of Saturday morning cartoons.

(Perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh. Maybe enough years have passed and what’s old is new again. Maybe kids are really tired of the standard elementary school setting of today’s Cartoon Network offerings. Perhaps a rewrite of old GI Joe plotlines is just what they need.)

The final serial is Equalizers of the Divide by Sara Turner and Jerzy Drozd. I assume Turner did the writing while Drozd did the art. To me, this was the biggest surprise out of the three. The story opens with an involved set up, not a good sign when the story is meant to last a short 24 pages. It was something about a world being split up into magic users and science users, and it used a lot of silly alphabet soup words that you’ll often find in every post-Star Wars, post-Tolkien sci-fi and fantasy novel.

The artwork, though, is spectacular. I’ve always wondered if superhero comics would ever translate well in webcomic form. Short answer: absolutely. Equalizers isn’t a superhero comic, but it bears all the marks of one: coloful, dynamic panels; crisp, fluid movements; colorful villains; and sweet spandex costumes. And, for once, it was refreshing to see a decent action sequence played out. (I’m starting to wonder if superheroes haven’t made as big an impact in digital comics because few webcomic artists know how to draw someone throwing a decent punch or have a good grasp of human anatomy, drawn hero style.) Again, there were no surprises in the standard adventure story. There’s a subplot involving a kidnapped sister, for Pete’s sake. However, Turner seems to have her tongue firmly in cheek, and she lets her villians speak some gleefully inane dialogue. It reminds me of how Bebop and Rocksteady used to address Splinter and Krang on that Ninja Turtles show. Enjoyable baddies are the heart and soul of a good action romp, and Turner succeeds here. Out of the three initial offerings, this is the one I would most like to read again.

Is it just me, or does snake guy look like he’s totally rockin’ out?

I’m not entirely sure that the serial format is going to work in the long run. The anthology format barely works in the comic book field. Remember how Tex Thomson tore up the pages of Action Comics, or the stories of hard-boiled detective Slam Bradley in the pages of Detective Comics? Of course not. That because following a dominant main character, Superman and Batman respectively, was a far more rewarding reading experience than reading a bunch of smaller stories with hurried plot resolutions. Even in my own reading experience I’ve only come across few instances of enjoyable short stories.

Sure, more readers will be exposed to more stories and more creators. However, this is the world of webcomics we’re talking about. I take a sampler pack of webcomics in every time I log on. A little bit of Scary Go Round here, some Dr. McNinja there, perhaps stop by to see what’s going on with Butterfly … all free of charge. What does the anthology format have over that? I guess the only advantage is when Sugary Serials is published in print, where young readers can take a nice comic book home and read it it with their palms propping their chins like we did in the old days.

Sugary Serials is a fun little project that I expect to check from time to time to see what stories pop up. Because of its roster of creators and its limiting format, it’s a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition. Despite the promise of action and adventure, you won’t ever really find yourself at the edge of your seat. The stories are hardly original; just because they’re for kids, that doesn’t mean creativity goes out the window, you know? On the other hand, they’re clean stories for the little ones. For the grown-ups, they provide some good, clean nostalgia in a world where two sleepy-eyed roommates talking about the “Portal” cake references is considered a laugh a minute.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)