I’ve recently just gotten a Wii. It will pretty much will be controlling all of my free time. It’s more or less the most well rounded system I’ve ever gotten: bright colors, a magical waving stick, and access to retro games that remind me that, yes, I was never able to get past World 2 in Super Mario Brothers 3 without cheating. Is there any doubt that it’s the King of Consoles? Tyler Rhodes certainly thinks so; the Wii is cast as a powerful, dominant monarch in his webcomic, Castle Vidcons.
I’ve got another review up on the Comic Fencing site, this time for the high fantasy comic Tales of Pylea. Make sure to click around the site to see what the other reviewers thought!
My Tales of Pylea review on Comic Fencing
You know, when you devote your time reviewing webcomics, you tend to view reading as a job. A, uh, really low paying job. So, just to switch it up, I to have some fun and catch up on some favorites. Some of these are old, so you may have read them already.
Contrary to what the title would have you believe, the comic isn’t about a filthy rich stock market investor gone mad with power. Rather, this comic covers ground that many have trod in the past and will tread in the future: video games. So you gotta ask yourself, why should I give a crap about John Pading’s Crazy Buffet?
You know, it is very possible to do a good video game webcomic. KC Green did an excellent one based on “Team Fortress 2″ that’s both heartwarming and hilarious. And this coming from a guy who’s never played that game. It’s part of his “Custom Comics” service, where, for a small fee, you can have your idea turned into a KC Green original, complete with his art and humor.
Also, since his Rumblo site goes down a lot and since I like “The Red Spy” so much, I’m including the full version of the comic after the cut.
June is Steampunk Month at ComixTalk, and I take on a webcomic series by one of the comic fields’ modern masters, Warren Ellis. Check out my review for FreakAngels, which may take the concept of “steampunk” to levels that some people might not be comfortable with.
Read my FreakAngels review on Comixtalk!
When you were young, one of the most basic forms you learn is the stick figure. Lines for arms, lines for legs, and a circle for the head. They’re so easy to draw, even a caveman could do it. (And they did, portraying their stick men hunting buffalo or dragging women in their caves or somesuch.) They’re also forever linked to our childhoods, as — in the days before we learned about perspective and depth — they were the first things were learned to draw.
Thus, almost all webcomics using stick figures acknowledge how juvenile it all is. Cyanide & Happiness revels in it, with their characters oozing bodily fluids as if they were characters in a bored 10-year-old’s notebook. xkcd employs the medium to toy with our expectations, launching into subjects that no child would contemplate (such as complex math equations or heartache).
But can stick figures be more? Rich Burlew thinks so. Despite having a degree in Illustration at the Pratt Institute, he decided to primarily use stick figures in his wildly popular webcomic, The Order of the Stick (popularly abbreviated OotS, though its true abbreviation, tOotS, provides a more flatulently melodic acronym). Why? According to an interview at Sequential Tart, Rich believes that “art really is more than just rendering anatomy, especially comic art. Communicating the actions of the main characters is the primary goal here, not to show off how well I understand facial structure.” A lofty goal, to be sure … but does he succeed?
