Daily Archives: February 11, 2008

Metapost: Huh… John Solomon’s back

Posted on
11

I know this piece of news is going to rankle some of you and be greeted with praise and adulation from others, but I had to post it here…

Remember John Solomon?

Of “Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad”?

Well… he’s back.

The first review back from the site’s self-imposed hiatus is Chugworth Academy. I’ll have to read it to see if the rapier wit is still undulled, and if the crew is still full of their trademark piss and vinegar.

UPDATE: I just finished reading his “Chugworth” review, and … what can I say? The webcomic deserved John Solomon.

UPDATE 2: I just realized that the review was written by Lilith Esther, not John Solomon. Whoops! In any case, “Your Webcomic is Bad…” is back.

UPDATE 3: After a small time out, I think maybe I was hasty in my first “Update.” I arrived my initial perception of “Chugworth” mainly through the links that Lilith posted. I agreed with Lilith as far as what I saw, however, I will admit that perhaps the linked strips were not representative of the series as a whole. So it may or may not have deserved John Solomon. I’m not posting this update because I’m suddenly being hunted down like an escaped prisoner by Chugworth fans. Rather, I realized some readers may be taking the opinion as canon, and I decided to give “Chugworth” a little leeway in the spirit of fairness.

However, Lilith was completely right about “Shredded Moose,” and if “Chugworth Academy” is anything like it, I reserve the right to completely delete this update.

The Webcomic Overlook #30: Achewood

Posted on
3

If there’s anything that’s explicitly terrible about Chris Onstad’s Achewood, it’s Achewood fans.

Like other members of rabid fanbases, Achewood fans seem to have no idea how to express their love for their strip except in the most boorish way possible. It seems like every message board I go to, there’s a dedicated Achewood thread. Why? Because Achewood fans were posting their favorite strips in threads where Achewood is not wholly appropriate. It’s as if mods everywhere came to the same conclusion and set up a separate Achewood thread just so the meatheads would leave everyone else alone.

And so, my first impression of Achewood was very negative. First, the asshole fans. Second, of the strips that were posted, none of them struck me as very funny. Achewood seemed to have a system of in-jokes that are not very funny to the casual viewer. Third, the art is very off-putting. I mean, the main character is an anthropomorphic cat in a thong! And finally, every Achewood strip fans posted seemed to boil down to a penis joke. I mean, even the title sounds like a penis joke. (Yeah, Onstad says it’s named after moonshine, but that explanation sounds a tad too convenient, if you know what I’m saying.) Wow, right up my alley … if I were 14 years old.

Thus, I was set to pretty much ignore Achewood for the rest of my life. However, two things happened that made me decide to give Achewood a spin. First of all, on a respected message board thread about webcomics, there was discussion on how Achewood was one of the most plot-driven webcomics around. Hold the mayonnaise, chief … this chuckleheaded webcomic has a story? And second, Achewood became Time’s #1 Graphic Novel of the Year. Now THAT got my attention. Time Magazine has made some absolutely boneheaded nominations recently — lest you forget, YOU, dear reader, were 2006′s Man of the Year — but this accolade seemed almost legitimate … despite the hilariously flowery prose.

(OK, I can’t be the only one laughing my ass off at Time‘s “The art is at times crude, but it rises to moments of extreme lyrical beauty,” right? This is Exhibit A why positive reviews are tougher to write than negative reviews.)

So I checked out Achewood for the same reason I check out a lot of things … morbid curiosity.


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