Welcome back to the Webcomic Overlook! After a longer-than-expected hiatus — where I traveled across the country, went to the final Sonics game, injured my foot, and wined and dined like there was no tomorrow — it’s time I plunge myself into the weird, wonderful world of digital comics.
But first, let’s talk about anime.
In today’s Saturday Adult Swim world — where blonde haired ninjas dress up in orange jumpsuits, squiggly-shaped characters do battle at the bidding of their trainers, and guys with spiky hair scream real loud and spend some ninety episodes beating the crap out of each other — it’s easy to forget that there was a much smaller but very devoted anime fanbase in the 1980′s. Now, I personally wasn’t part of this fanbase. I cut my teeth a decade later when I watched a little series about where a boy turns into a girl with a splash of cold water. I also made the mistake telling a girl in college all about it with naive, unbridled enthusiasm. (Her piercing accusing eyes … they still penetrate my soul.)
There was a time, though, when anime was filled with space-faring adventures, huge plasma rifles, men who piloted transforming robots, ominous spaceships, and women whose hair looked impossibly shellacked. In short, a time when all anime was pretty much influenced by Star Wars. Robotech is the most famous of these cartoons. There were many, many more, though.
Which brings me to the subject of today’s Webcomic Overlook: Alpha Shade, which looks and feels inspired by those 1980′s sci-fi anime.
